When souls fall to ashes
by Death Korps
Summary: War comes to Middleton and it's not just the undead who make problems: It's feelings and emotions too. Every of the characters you know and the new ones have secrets in the past that will blend into this story. Has some heavy violence and pairings.
1. The gunner runs again

This is the redone version of my story. I'm currently reworking all chapters to make them more appealing. In fact the first chapters grammar had been more than crappy. I'd still like to thank anyone who had already read the story and I want to appologize for having written badly.

I'd enjoy reviews very much.

Chapter 1

He ran, once again, from the people that surrounded him. All but one of the sounds came in an irregular pattern. It was difficult to hear this specific one among all the others. It was not similar to both footsteps and all other sounds. This one sound differed by indicating a running person.

A clear, practised running of a person that had full control of mind and body. Tupp-tupp-tupp-tupp was the echo that hulled against the walls of a long and dark corridor. The other sounds, shouts und loud echos of very many feet, signalised that this person was being followed. Or hunted. In this case there was no difference.

A pair of shoes came into view. His shoes. They were clean and their black leather was not disturbed by any color. They didn't reflect the light that came from dimmed tubes at the ceiling. Between these tubes of light lay islands of darkness. These islands stood outside of the lightsheltered angles the tubes offered and they radiated a suptile, invisible but feelable aura of unknown.

A feeling that everything one feared as a young child could (and would) lurk in these shadows. Waiting, observing, hoping that the runner would leave the weak protective orbs of light that keep them at bay. The light hurted them. He knew it just as they did. But he was too fast for them to be kept inside these strongholds of darkness.

They wanted to close the blackness around him and didn't want to let him enter light again. In his mind not the boogieman, not the closet-monster nor any other childish product of fear from darkness stood there to capture him. No, something closer and more real kept waiting for him. His friends stood there in the shadows. But none tried to hold, stop or hurt him.

Much worse than any physical harm, they pointed at him with one outstretched index finger. But they were cautios not to touch or even hinder his running. They even made way for him when he accidently took a step too much to the left. But can one collide with the phantoms that were pressed against the walls inside these huge areas of blackness?

Each and everyone of his friends he had disappointed, betrayed or left behind returned from the past. So much had been left unsaid, so many things undone, so many chances not used, so many opportunities wasted.

And so many mistakes and failures had been done.

He could see no emotion in the faces of his former friends. They could give him the fate he deserved without any difficulty. But they didn't do that. Instead they all raised their fingers as one. Pointing at the one that was still running though he shouldn't be. They stood there in a line that was similar to honorguards that came when one countryleader visited the other. They stood with a continuity, discipline and agility of a military group as they raised their fingers.

They traced him with their fingers like only trained marksmen could do and followed every single one his of movements. He could jump to the side, throw himself to the ground but their fingers would still trace him like a predator his prey. They wanted to toy with him before sharing the sweet luxury of forgetting with him.

And he wanted to forget. To just leave it all behind. A door at the end of the corridor came closer. That was his key to sweet forgetting. The gate to his future. The portal he had worked so hard for. That was his solution. It was almost like as if the light at the end of the tunnel his friends offered him.

But that was not the solution he wanted. He passed the first isle of darkness. His friend James stood inside it. He had been the first and so he started the long row of his former friends. The face of the silent bystander was an emotionless mask. The phantom also didn't speak but the finger compensated for it tenfold. The fingerpointing only those could give that had enough evidence and hatred to accuse someone of the highest and worst crime:

Treasonry against comrades.

The phantoms that haunted him heaved overwhelming chunks of guilt and sadness upon his fragile shoulders. But they were not real. Or were they? At least they were not the threat he ran from. But they made him feel weak, helpless and lost. He just wanted it to end. His vision became blurry from a fluid that started to fill his eyesockets.

One of his ex-friends looked him deep into the eyes. It was a true glare that only death itself could give. He withstood it without effort. The look wasn't the problem but the fingerpointing and its accusement was. It was an obvious gesture that asked: "Why are you running and not me?" The chief, his second helper and teacher stood between him and the door. His finger made it all unbearable.

He wanted to apologize. To say that he would not repeat his mistakes if he'd be given a second chance. But did he deserve a second chance? His chest and side hurt much from the pain the memorys caused and his legs were willing to simply disobey his orders to walk. So he stood there. The other sounds came closer. Too close. He was so deep in his agony that he didn't notice that his friends had lowered their fingers.

"You forgive me?" The runner was surprised. But as if the phantom could read his mind it brought up the finger again.

"So you don't. I don't blame you." Sadness took over his mind. But the finger showed the real door, not the light at the tunnel's end that his friends had showed. A glimpse of hope rose.

"Yes your right! I wont waste MY chance! Thank you for everything!" The runner was back from his thoughts and in his body again. The pain was immense but not so overwhelming anymore. He noticed that the sounds had come dangerously close. He could make out that the nearest noises were filled with a glee of awaiting and lust. He raised his left upperleg to walk. At first it didn't obey, but after a short moment his guilt lost its iron grip on the muscle.

Appearently his former friends wanted him to cope with his mistakes and their consequences instead of just letting it end so easy. So he ran again even though he wasn't a good runner. After a short while that seemed like an eternity his grip was only more inches away from the doorknob. _What if it doesn't open?_ _That would be typical. To lose at the very end, after all the struggle to fail and perish because of a locked door._

He touched the doorknob. But it didn't turn. "This is not real! Stupid american doors!"

He pushed the knob around the opposite direction and it opened. The sounds and their consequences came closer. _Silly! _He slapped his forehead with a hand and entered another world.

---

_Strange I always thought that a second chance looks different._ Were the runners thoughts as he closed the door behind himself and turned the knob to the left. Thrice. After having fullfilled that important step to be the only one who had access to a new life, a new chance and hopefully different people he turned and looked at his new surroundings.

A basement. _Just like in that one tv-show with the ladyshoe-selling dude who has always lost in life._ _Just as myself!_ A cynic smile crept its way across the face, mocking the pain he felt. It was dark and only a small lamp at the stairway across his position gave light. Enough light to see another door. He was about to start walking towards it when he forced himself not to:

"Not now. Work to do."

A couch and an old, bulky wooden closet were in sight, standing on the right side of the room. On the left was a small pooltable. _Hmmm… I'll break my back if I try to move the billiardtable. But the couch should work._ He moved around the backside of the blue couch and wondered:

"Why was it banished to rot away here? It still looks-" He got around the couch completely and saw the seats. The right one was entirely away and revieled old stains of a wee-like liquid while the left one was ripped up like as Freddy Krueger had murdered it.

"-good. Or not."

He shrugged his shoulders and began to pull the old thing near the door he had come through.

"Well old yeller at least YOU serve a purpose now."

The couch stood upright with the backside against the door.

"Man I should stop talking to myself so much."

The billardtable stood, against all odds, behind the couch. _Whow folks who can efford to let this stand around in the basement must be rich. Or dumb._ He expacted both to fit.

"HUFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" Closets were appearently not his strong spot. Slowly his "barricade" made progress and he noticed that the door started to erupt under slow blows against it.

"Shut up dumbasses! Man people are impatient these days."

A Problem appeared: Was the door alone hard enough to withstand "them"? And if so, for how long? And the couch was not very trusty-looking either.

"Hmmm I don't think that weestains are gonna keep em off." He took the risk and shoved the couch away. The door slowly bend under the blows. Too much for "runner's" liking. So he pressed himself against the heavy closet, making it go into place. Not satisfied with his work he also put the feather-weight-billiardtable behind the closet.

After making a scowl he went towards the other door when the banging got more intense. He expected the door to break, but it didn't. _Appearently everything in this town is more reliable and more conveniantly placed than in……. Ach forgot the name._ While shrugging his shoulders he began to turn the doorknob.

To the left, of course: "Dammit stupid."

After turning it right the door opened inwards. He jumped behind two steps just like he had learned, but no one came. Engulfed by curiosity he stuck his head out and saw-

A very beautifull girl. Her brown hair was nice, but her skin was marvellous. He raised an Eyebrow. _How long had it been since I saw someone like that?_ Were his silent thoughts. But appearently just these thoughts gave him away.


	2. A rather inconvenient meeting

Chapter two: A wonderous encounter. This is the redone version. It's supposed to have the same writing style the newer ones have. I'm sorry for how crappy the grammar was. (And hopefully not still is.)

"Who are you?" Bonnie was surprised. "And what are you doing in my basement?"

"Errm…"

"Oh yeah GREAT reply. SO delighting!" She was pissed. At first that miss perfect ruined it all again and then that freak came.

"Where am I?"

"What?" That surprised her even more. The person came out of the door and closed it after that.

"Lady, where am I exactly?" He moved his left hand in a circle while talking and turning the doorknob with his right hand. Thrice.

"Right….." She let her shoulders hang down.

"Hey no need to be pissed AND confused young lady. I-"

"Shut up! Get out of my party!"

"Party. Hmm. That explains why I heard this dumb "dumdumdum". Must be the bass."

"URRGGHGHH GET OUT!"

"Mkay Lady." He rolled his eyes. "But don't try to bite me later."

That was the top of it for her. She looked very intently at the stupid and unnerving loser. He seemed to have no fashion-taste in her oppinion. A black leather-jacket, black jeans, black leather-gloves and black leather shoes clothed him.

_Okay the shoes, jacket and gloves look nice. But HE doesn't._ She thought further about the dumb-O: He was just as longgrown as she was. Which was already throwing him to the bottom of her "attriactive-o-meter". The jacket's pockets were somewhere at the beginning of his upper-legs, the glasses would look okay on Josh if they were Sun-glasses and had a cooler frame. But that way they just sucked.

The face indicated a nerd to her. The hair was brown, but a very bright one. Almost like the brightness from blond with brown instead of blond. _Uhhhh disgusting_. And that was not everything:

He had a three-days beard. _Beards are so eighty!_ The jacket made him look brideshouldered but that didn't fit with his small size. It made him look amazingly silly.

"Hmmm didn't have the money for a longcoat right goth?" She asked while pointing at him and with an index figer and putting the other hand at her hip.

"Or was it just too long for you, little guy? Oh wait, your daddy doesn't ALLOW you to wear that?"

He shivered and his eyes showed shock at the moment she put the finger towards him. _Hah!_

He got back to normal and replied with anger in his voice: "No, I wanna see you run around a city with everyone against you and- _ugh the typical loser-story, not again, please_ -having to carry stuff with- " He suddenly stopped and put his ear close to the door.

She mocked him further: She really was on to it: "Oh, don't know what to say?"

"Shut up!" He waved his left gloved hand while having his right ear at the door.

"Oh are you gonna shout at me now?" And then continued with a faky angsty voice: "UHHHH please don't hurt me I'm so weak and helpless!"

"Indeed you are. When the closet and billardtable break further-"

"You TOUCHED MY stuff?"

That was the definite end for her 'patience'. It would be the first time she hit someone. _No better! I'll_ _ tell Josh he had tried to touch me and cry at his chest. Two flies with one swing! _But before she could start to blow her steam off on him he played the tough-guy:

"Listen: They'll break the other door soon. Then they'll come up here and kill you, your family, and your friends. I might not be able to hold them off. Get everyone out of here!"

She wasn't angry but irritated from the stern psycho-look he had. _Who is he to speak against the great Bonnie Rockwaller anyway?_

"Hold em off? Who? And with what?"

"First come the words, than the lies, and in the end bloodshed. Now is time for the latter." After that he gripped underneath the jacket with his right hand while holding the doorknob with the left. He had turned away from her before that.

She freaked out. The guy seemed totally crazed. And what he hid underneath the jacket didn't seem to be good either. Then it dawned on her, the thought made her creep up with fear:

"Exebitionist! JOSH HELP!"

"Your friends won't protect you from the death that lurks behind these gates!" His voice was cold and without emotion. Just as his eyes, which looked into her direction, but not upon her.

---

In the other room, Josh mankey sat with his art friends and discussed things. He heard Bonnie scream for help and thought it would be some trick to get him "back". But the basic instinct of always checking when something behind one's back happened made him look around.

And he saw Bonnie. He had to admit that she was very attractive already with less-"making you look hot" clothes. But she was a real grenade with her nice blue top and her dark pink miniskirt on. But, theres always a flaw: When she wanted to she could be a real bitch.

Then he noticed the small guy. In black leather and jeans. _Okay nice idea but you gotta be thin and longgrown to make that look cool._

While their eyes met he heard that guy say something about that her friend would not protect her from death. He had sent the guy a death-glare and was amazed that he could withstand it so easily and without effort. He stood up and moved in a quick walk. Then he saw it. The "dude" was reaching into his jacket to pull something out.

_Therefor the jacket! Excellent hideout for knives!_ He started to run and jumped over a minibar that was foolish enough to stand in his way. No one dared to say JOSH MANKEY wouldn't stand like a man in the face of danger. He was just about to jump at the guy and grab him by the collar when he disappeared in the inwardly opening door to some place he didn't know. _Hmmmmmmmmmm. Basement!_ He hadn't known the Rockwallers had a such. _On the other hand_, he wondered_, is there ANYTHING they don't have? Money, beauty, arrogance?_

"Oh yeah just hide in the dark like the coward you are!" He could not know how wrong this thought was.

He reached Bonnie. She was stood there like nailed. His hands touched on her shoulders and he turned her around. "Oh Josh it was so horrible! Please hold me tight!" Was the answer he expected. But instead she just stammered: "Don- don't go there!"

"I have to get this bastard for what he's done to you." Sure she was a bit deceiving sometimes but Josh was a gentleman. At least he thought that.

"NO DON'T!" She almost clawed into him.

"I'll be fine" He gave her his "I-get-every-girl-with-that"smile and pushed away, down the first stair.

FIN


	3. When two fight the third one laughs

chapter 3 : If two fight the third one laughs. ( Disclaimer in first chapter)

He chased the guy down the stairs and found something more than irritating.

Josh ignored the darkness and closed the door behind him. He saw the guy on the bottom of the five stairs. The item he held with his both hands was not seeable in that moment.

"I will beat you for what you did to Bonnie!"

The dark figure stepped back while his right foot turned by 30 degrees, only to throw his opponent a short analyzing look. But before the person turned back to its former position Josh took a look at what the young dude held in his grasp. The thing had a grip for his right hand, above this grip were two thin metallic straws that lead to his right shoulder.

In the opposite direction metal went forward until it became a smaller and thinner single straw of steel with a small halfcircle upon before the end. But before the spot of thinning another shape of black metal lead downwards in a 90-degrees angle. His left gloved hand was barely another colour and not shiny at all and wrapped around the connection of that stripe. It rested underneath the main "body" of the thing.

Its strange shiny reflection of the moonlight that was one of two enemies of darkness in this basement showed proof of great craftsmenship. He could see the metal go into other pieces with high precision and without any scar, scratch or place where one could cut his fingers at. The strangeness of the moment, the calculative short look of the hardly seeable phantom and the hypnotising way his steel-thing reflected the light kept him in a sort of trance.

_Why? Is that guy a psiker or something?_ Josh had read about people who could make you do everything they wanted only by letting you look at a swinging clock. He had read that in an art-magazine of course. He wasn't interested in the way they got hypnotised but rather in what perfect pictures they made even with no experience of art.

There before him stood a young man, who was ceartainly an art-knowing man just like him. Just of a different kind of art. For example a picasso was no rembrandt. Good books were art but drawn pictures were art too. Josh was an outstanding painter and the paint was his tool.

And the metalthing was the guys tool. It alone was nothing just as the artist was useless alone.

The same thing was the paint he used. It needed a painter. Just the same as with this guy and his metallic thing. But in this case the item itself was art already. He had observed the thing with the eyes of a good art critician and it passed with flying colours. But the guy didn't. He might have a few talents of his field of art but it wasn't very intense nor much.

But he felt respect either for the taste this dude had and for the fact that he was another artist. The dude's short look had also shown a sort of intelligence that most, but not all artists had. And this guy seemed have a lot of it. And a REAL art-understanding person was found hardly nowadays. Josh had to struggle with his urge to discuss his own (or more than that the dude's sort of) art and to start a conversion with that guy.

He still had to punch that criminal for beeing so rude to Bonnie.

Josh thought all this in the very short moment before the guy turned away from him again. He seemed desinterested in him but not unaware of his existance and position. _He thinks I'm no threat for him. Dumb-O _Josh didn't know that the dark phantom classified him very much as a danger behind him, but simply not as important as the lethal one before him.

And while ending these thoughts Josh jumped from the stairs towards the intruder of Bonnies party. His attack was very fast since he was atlethic. He pushed himself from the stairs with his legs and had gravity on his side. Just a millisecond before he clawed on the dude's shoulders he turned around and hightened his metal-thing. Josh recognised the thing and gave himself a mental slap for his unability to notice the important point among the details. It was a gun! And that maniac was aiming at him! _The cold look-he-he'll kill me!_

_--- _

He heard a noise like as if a crawler would jump at him and turned around with his on-trained speed.

The gunner raised his trusted machinepistol and aimed at the threat. He wanted to pull the trigger just before he was pushed to the ground. The very most people would have pulled the trigger as a reflex-like reaction. But not him. No HE was a professional. HE knew that the bullets wouldn't hit their target. And that would be waste of precious bullets. And he couldn't afford waste of these in that moment.

He knew that giving into stupid pseudo-reflexes was the last thing to do in combat. Right as he was falling among the blur that hit him realization came: He was done for. But then his irrational mind stepped in and replaced the faked fear his body produced by something better: Something that always stepped in when he was in a seeming-to-be you-have-no-way-out situation:

"Never lose Hope! There is always a way out! Always. Even if its so hard to find, so invisible it IS there. I must fight for it. As long as I don't give into my fear, as long as I don't give up myself will I survive." It was not exactly a thought. Normal thinking was like speaking to one self without opening the mouth. But what he thought was something better, faster and more usefull than rational and conscious thinking: It was instinct. No, it was:

Knowledge.

He knew he would make it out. He knew he could escape. Somehow. His stupid conscious mind wanted to trick and treason him. But there was always the thing that had been called "the unconsciuos consciousness" by Siegmund Freud. That man had been the first to seek inside the humans psyche instead of doing stupid testings on the vital functions of "crazy" people.

Just this thing always stepped in to take over the parts that the conscious mind had left without guidance. Maybe was just this what fuelled "them"? Maybe was it just basic insinct? No not instinct. They don't have an insinct to keep themselves alive at all cost. On the other hand, they didn't need to think about staying alive anymore.

And so the both of them landed on the ground. That young man was above him. Problem. _He tries to strike me_ Problem. He's not the only one who wants to do that _big problem_.

_He's the only one who doesn't know that we two arent alone in here_. Problem.

_But these other people don't just want to beat me for having accidently terrified their girlfriends_ REALLY BIG Problem.

This young atlethic man who had assaulted him like only a few other things could do wanted to beat him. He felt the helplessness inside him. _Beeing beaten by a teen and then beeing eaten_. _Great way to leave the path._ But the tall and strong man hadn't thought about blocking his opponents arms.

Which was a great mistake in hand-to-hand. The teenie was just about to let his fist hammer into the glasses-wearing gunner when the magazine smashed into his right cheek. In a short scream from the pain and surprisement the fact his cheek bleeded delivered fell the jock a bit to the left.

He barely made it to maintain his balance but this short moment was all the gunner needed. He slipped away underneath the no more hindering but still annoying weight of a man almost sitting on him with spreaded legs. And he didn't turn around to look what had happened behind him and what was behind him.

Because he already knew what would be there. _At least that guy wil serve as a delay now. _He didn't waste his precious two seconds and jumped near the stairs while standing up. And then he ran them up, not caring about the teenager and the fate this poor soul whould share. The fate of slowly beeing shattered.

Josh looked upwards - it had been about 1 and a half second since that moron had hit him with his gun - ."Pfft gun. Stupid weakling."

---

The runner reached the doorknob, turned it and heard a scream. He knew that more would follow.

The art-crazed senior teenager felt fingers in his hair that kept clutching his head and made him unable to move. He still didn't see who was standing there before him..

The door opened. In the first moment the blackclad fugitive was blinded but could still make out the shape of a very female body and brown hair. Behind him light fell into the basement. He saw everything what included his foolishness. The foolishness he would have to pay deerly for.

---

Bonnie had kept waiting for about a quarter of a minute but it had seemed like an eternity. _Will Josh make it out? Of course he will! Wait….why am I asking myself this? He only needs to beat up that guy and come up again._ Her thoughts were making her worry about herself. Before she could think further a ceartain red-headed princess ran past her and waved a hand.

She was so surprised that she couldn't show any faked anger towards her and waved back. Then the readhead ran out of the door while still listening to a voice that came out of that stupid beeb-thingy she always carried around. And the blond buffoon was right behind her. She looked behind herself as the sound of a turning doorknob was heard. The door opened and then she saw something she had never wanted to see.

---

Josh was still kneeling but something was clawing at his lower stomach to make him go to the ground. _Bad trick you moron_ he thought before looking down. His eyes widened in shock.

---

She saw strange people standing near Josh. One was a woman in her late 20's with hair that fell from her head. Beside her was a 10 or so year old boy with a smile on his face. A wicked smile. She couldn't see his eyes from the distance. The woman held Joshs head in a tight grip while the boy kept towing at his chest.

Behind these two was a couple of some sort, an old man with a huge belly and three men in similar subwayworker's outfits. They were all staring at josh. And he stared back at them.

Then the short guy with the black clothes got through the door. She saw that there was the families oldest couch (which was still there because they had bought it at the day they became rich) standing around while being ripped intwo behind destroyed pooltable. These two things blocked half of the sight upon an opened door. _What is that behind the door? A corridor?_ Her curiosity started to ask.

Like as if that would have been the important point in that moment.

After this the short young man closed the door. But before the door became entirely closed she saw that they all were jumping to, going to or already touching Josh. And their eyes. In the short moment before the light died inside the basement the only thing she saw were these pairs of whitely shimmering but still strangely black orbs.

Then the door shut. But not forever.


	4. Worlds can shatter, minds can too

„HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHRHRHHRHR..."

The music was still playing it's dum-dum-dum. The teens were still dancing, talking, kissing.

Even through the loud music the scream went past the door and into the hearts of the two young persons. They could not react more differently. She was almost dwarfing and her head sunk into her shoulders. Her look was full of fear. Not the natural fear. The fear that makes one fall to the ground and wait for anything to hieve one up. Or to give one the final blow.

He just stood there and looked like an emotionless and cold rock on the outside. But inside he was boiling. He felt so sorry for that young girl. She had just lost someone precious to her and she would lose even more: Family, friends, her home, her belief in a simple nice life. It all would be lost.

But he would fight for her. She should not have the same mental damage as he had. He would do almost everything to protect her and her sanity. If everything went "smooth" all she would have would "only" be a light-to-middle mental disorder and that could be healed. In that moment he felt something he had never felt before.

Not love (even though his affection for her was more than just physical). No, it was the feeling and wish to... protect. He didn't want to only help, assist or consolidate. Rather than that he had finally found someone who deserved his comradeship. Someone who was **worth** to fight, but not die, for. He had never given up himself. From now on he had someone else to never give up upon.

"We need to move out of here. Where are your parents?" He asked.

She did not respond.

"WHERE? PARENTS? CAR?" He shook her shoulders.

"HM…err" she kept staring into nothing.

They would soon be finished with that moron who had attacked him.

With her right hand in his left and his trusted machinepistol in his own right hand he went to the livingroom. He had to pull her since she wasn't willing to walk herself. His mind fought against two oppinions: He could leave her or he could shield her. For the first time in his life his mind and his instinctive knowledge fought for power.

He would block the door and could then get the cops involved. His mind and instinct had found a good compromise. They were even working together as one. Before this he could only think or "instinct" at one time. Surely he could switch in the matter of seconds but from this moment on he could do both at the same time which was very convinient.

The basement door was (conveniently) placed underneath the stairs which meant that it could easily be blocked with the right tools. But hadn't the corridor-door been easily blockable too? He let Bonnie have a seat on a chair of a shattered minibar and looked at the couch. He ran to it and no one minded. He started to shake it. It was very heavy but still movable.

But this time someone minded. "Hey man stop it or ill beat-"

He shoved the barrel of his trusted Mpi40 into the dumbasses face and shouted "Shut up TOMMYBOY!"

"The reaction came immediate. "WHOOW! " his voice changed from angry bully to obedient little whimp in no time. "Careful mister!" He raised his hands into the air. "I don't care!" He was angry. The stupid drunk bullie didn't know that he was slowing the one who could save them. He should make a hole in the the useless teen's head but then the others would a)not listen b)run away or c)call the police.

But the girl without a name was looking at him. He wondered what she thought and he would do much to read her thoughts now. She would never come along if she knew first-hand that he could be an icecold murderer.

He ordered the bullie with a voice clear and empty of all emotion: "Get off the couch. Then call the police. Tell them a psycho would shoot at everyone and has taken hostages. Then run home. Then leave the town as soon you are there. **Understood**?" He emphazised the importance of that question by putting the barrel deeper into the teen's forehead and making an angry face. He "behaved" himself but if the dumbass was that useless….

The jock nodded quickly and looked sober at the second. "Yes!"

"Then execute your orders. NOW."

The appearently not so dumb bullie got up and ran towards the phone in lightning speed.

Bonnie still hadn't changed in her stare but at least was it no longer as empty as it was before. They were all as innocent as and yet guilty at the same time.

He ran towards the music box and shut it off to speak. Just as he opened his mouth someone put it on with a remote. The young man gave him a winning smile that was filledwith arrogance.

He took two steps away from the sound system and raised his Mpi. "TATT"- the loud and unique sound of a 9mm luger bullet quitted the music instantly and sent sparks flying from the almost imploding stereo. Everyone was quiet and looked at him. Some people were coming from the other rooms to see why the music had gone.

In this slightly ironic moment he startet to roam: "PARTY IS OVER! I WILL SHOOT ANYONE WHO-" He hadn't come to finish his sentence since everybody started to scream and ran away in panic. "Good. A few corpses less. At least for now…."

He shoved the couch and the kitchentable in front of the door to doom. "Good something else finished. Now to-" He looked at bonnie who still kept staring at him "Man what a shock." He moved towards her and kneeled before the girl like someone who's gonna ask for a marriage. "Listen. Where is your car?"

She looked around a bit but didn't say anything. He slowly sqiezed her hands with his gloved left and said: "We must get out of here. Do you understand?"

She nodded faintly.

"Good. Car-keys?"

"Errrmmmhm" She seemed like a girl on drugs trying to think for the first time since years. But he couldn't blame her.

"Where? Can you show me? Or get them?" He wanted to ask her about her parents but they were obviously not there. "Hopefully they have two cars…."

He knew that they had no more time and took his left glove off. After that his left hand made its way into hers and held it. She grasped around it slowly.

"Good, now-"

"In the kitchen! Beside the coffeemachine!" She interrupted him.

This time she had reacted at all. And she gave him very valuable info.

"Good. Can you walk?" She nodded.

"Mkay" he stood up, her hand still in his "Then lets go."

He made his way towards the still open kitchendoor with her when he heard bangings against the basement-door. "Still too early." The living room was between the kitchen and the stairs of hell. There lay his ticket to salvation. He had have had to walk or run for the last 5 hours and was happy to finally sit and get some distance to this place.

He felt a bit heroic when he grabbed the keys, put them into his left jacket pocket (which was a bit boiled out from the ammunition-stripes for his teutonic masterpiece of death) and moved with her towards the front door. And just then it happened.

Doors are stable. At least as long as no one smashes three or more numb bodies against it. Two or so more strikes and the barrier would be done for. They exited the front door (she was walking a bit faster and less apathic than before) and ran to the car that stood infront of the garage. He opened the front door with the key.

Since he didn't know how to open the doors from the inside he had to run around to open the side door. "Damn so much time is lost." He entered the car, sat down like someone who had done that a thousand times and closed the door. He looked to the right to see Bonnie just closing her door but she was still looking at him.

Bonnie was still shocked, but understood that the further away these things were, the better.

She saw him looking at her and asked: "What?" He didn't reply. Instead he got the key out of his pocket and it dropped it to the floor. "SHIT" He exclaimed.

---

Bonnie was still in her snappy mood even though the shock of her life.

He had dropped this bulky metal-thing on her lap. _How DARE he! Its so cold on my legs. And what if that… that…. THING goes off when I touch it?_

"Use the Mpi!"

"Use what?"

"aRGHHH THAN FIND THE KEY AND THE HOLE FOR IT!"

She didn't know if that was a REALLLLLLLLLLLY stupid way to hit on her or… "You wont get a girl with shouting at her all the time." She thought while bending down. _Although he was a bit…. (nice?)..less worse than now when he held my hands._ Just as she had the keys in her grasp that image floated back to her. She shuddered and dropped the keys herself.

"Are you dumb? WE are in a FIGHT for our lives a-"

"SHUT UP AND DO IT BETTER!"

He was quiet immediately, appearently defeated. _He's gonna tell me he's SO the hero against these people but cant take shouting form a girl! Just great._

She got up. And saw him pointing that thing at her. At her-_OHMYGOD_

"Down!" he said, and she went down. Not from his "order" but rather from her finally awakened instincts. More by accident she hit the button that lowered the car's windows. And then came what Bonnie thought off as the loudest thing on earth.

TaTT—TaTT-TaTT(she heard something drop to the ground)-tatatatattttt.(Something made the sound of a squished melon)

She got up again only to feel something hot between her back and the seat. Really hot. Small nasty things made from what seemed to be hot steaming magma.

"AAAOUUUUUUHHH "

"Sorry, the cartridges co-

"SHUT UP AND DRIVE!" Auwww how these small things burned. _I'll give him Cartridges!_

After about ten seconds of fiddling, swearing and paranoid looks towards the front door the ignition finally came.

"Errrmmm" he looked confused.

"What now?" she crossed her arms.

"Where is the coupling and the..errr… gear-switching?" He looked at her in a confused way like someone who didn't know what to do.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" she sighed "Its an automatic!"

"Whow COOL!" He sounded more than a child in a toy store than the guy he had been untill now.

She pondered about how old he was. _17? No, too old. 15? Maybe._

He pressed one pedal and waited "Oh these are the brakes."

She slapped her forehead. "Moron." Then she thought _"Sorry didn't want to say that..."_

"Hey! Im new to cardriving! No not really... I drove that trekker once."

"I don't care just drive." Somehow all the haste was gone by now. Police-sirens could be heard. _What on earth is a trekker? Hmm maybe one of these nerd tv-shows?_

He mumbled something in a language she didn't understand and started the car.


	5. Roadtrip to hell

ch 5 Road-trip to hell. (Disclaimer in first chapter)

The first challenge of the day was to navigate the car without hugging a tree _and_ handling an infuriated teenie-"queen".

Bonnie looked intently at the young man beside her. How old was he truly? She couldn't judge. He appeared to be young because of his short stature but the 3-days beard and how he spoke showed different, just as different as himself. He spoke with words and sentence-constructions that clearly differed him from other teens. _Like what he had said about death before josh..._- Her head slumped down and she was obviously sad.

He was totally focused on the street and the controlling wheel. It was pretty difficult to keep the car going straight. From the outside it rather looked like he would be constantly driving a bit left and then a bit right but that didn't prevent him from noticing that her head was going down. "Hey" he broke the silence, "wanna talk about that guy?"

"Hmm what? No im fine."

He raised an eyebrow, shot the street a short look and said: "Don't lie. You're an open book to me."

This was it. He didn't just differ by behaviour but also from a suptile sense of arrogance in his choice of words. "And I thought I knew how to put people below me."

He looked surprised at her. "Did I say that?"

"Oh of COURSE not."

"Im sorry for…well" he was distracted by almost ramming a bypassing blue dodge caravan. "Its just...you know, I've experienced that it is rebuilding one's mental integrity if that one talks about it. I didn't want to hurt you feelings or make you feel like I would disrespect you."

"Pfft." She crossed her arms before her chest and looked away from him. "Feelings? Im not hurt you just piss me off."

"I am sorry for that but we have to come out with each other if we want to have any cha-"

"With YOU? No way!"

He was taken aback, but continued. "And chance for what? HUHH?" she said and thought: _He's SO nerving me out! He is just trying to help me, I guess. Maybe I shouldn't be so mean to him..._

He bit his lower lip for a second and looked at the street again. _Uffff finally, I thought he'd never stop. _But when she thought that he turned his head again.

"You must explain me the relation you and this poor stranger had before his tragic demise." _He still wants to know about Josh?_

She didn't know that he was lying to her about the "tragic" loss.

"I MUST do nothing like that." _Although... maybe he's right. Maybe I should tell him everything..._

"Okay just...errrm...want to help." He turned towards the street to stop at a crossing.

"Sure you want to."

"Hey im serious! You'll want to tell someone sooner or la-"

"Like I'd tell YOU anything." _Its not that wouldn't want to talk... It's just the wrong time._ He spead up again, almost got rammed by a sportscar and gave the driver the finger. After that he turned to the left.

"Listen I just want to keep you from harm –" her look fell on a bus. Weird people were walking or running at it. "- even if I piss you off we both are- " one girl was screaming at two persons who were trying to put her to the ground inside the bus. "- in the same boat and" he stopped in midsentence and spead up to the vehicle under siege. He must have seen it too.

"Stay in the car. No matter what happens. If you hear me scream or I don't come back in four minutes drive on without me." His tone had changed.

Bonnie could only look at him with surprise. _That cold ordering voice… its almost like Barkin when he's pissed. Wait, what does he mean with drive on without him?_ She turned her head to the girl screaming even harder. "Stay. No matter whatever happens. Lock the doors after I left."

"Why?" she asked. But he continued without any notice of her intrusion. _Is he dumb or something? What is this about?_

"If I come back and act weird, like them, don't open. Drive away then. Do ONLY open the door when I say "Darkest Night" ONLY THEN"

"You always act weird."

She was creeped out by both his voice and face now. _That look… like Barkin when he plots something very important._ The car stopped by the bus in a distance of ten meters.

All the weirdos were inside it now. "Remember the word. Farewell young lady."

"Why you're saying that?" "In case we never meet again." Was his cold reply.

He went out. Bonnie made an irritated face and thought. _What does he mean with never?_

_--- _

He knew it. The girl in the bus had stopped screaming. It always _ends_ with a scream.

So he lead his left hand to the midsection of the only friend fate had left him. His Gun. He put a small knob that reached outside like a small mushroom from a perfectly looking tree behind, downwards and then he let it snap to the front above the clip by itself. "tfluck-TSUCK was the sound this produced.

_She isn't irritated by my Mpi_ He thought as he looked at the crushed bus's door, ready to fire at any thing inside _But maybe that's just because she's american. Dumb bastards, always got a gun at hand but never when it counts!_ He raced up the stairs and heard-

---

Bonnie was still in the car. She didn't know it was the best for her. The engine was still running. Then came a scream. After that a loud Thud-like sound. Then another. Than it hit her. The sounds, the cold voice. He was –

---

TATT- one round down in the jaw, TaTT a second one square into the left eye. He aimed at the closest one who intended to grip him and-

"Help, Pease!" Even through the single sounds of that strangely familiar thud the panicked shout could be heard. Bonnie thought-

---

_SHIT I'M TO LATE_ The man with a small piece of skin hanging from his cheek was lunging for the girl.

---

_No please! Im too young! I wasn't in love yet, please no!_ The ill-looking man came closer and raised his arms to catch her. She wouldn't have the strength to throw him off for the fourth time. _No, please!_ Her thoughts were not stopping him. Silly girl. But what to do?

What could one do in these last seconds? -

---

- fighting. He would fight to the last. And if it meant too kill 'em with his knife or bare hands.

She shrank back into the back exit of the bus. She tried to open it but failed. Her eyes were never away from her inevitable doom. She bent down with her back at the wall. And let her head sink. _I give up_ was what she thought of to be her last thoughts.

---

"Im bored." Bonnie shuddered. "I hope he doesn't take too long."

---

TaTT another man, this time the driver sank back into the bench from which he had tried to rise over as the gunner passed by. "Just three left…" One before him and in the way of a clean shot from the Undead that was going for the girl. One was behind him slowly rose. He would be in attack range soon. And they ALWAYS were damn too fast when they got so close.

He had two choices.

1: The safe one, kill the Undead behind him and then the other one. Pro: He's safe. Con: She's not.

2: The risky one: Take some time and aim at the girls nemesis to make the round safe in its head.

The first one came from his expireinced survival instinct but his heart disagreed. The girl could be dead ,or worse, bitten until then. And he had came for her and not to waste ammo. Fighting that couldn't get someone saved was always useless waste of time and material.

Number two offered the chance of winning both lives, but had a too high risk to lose both. If he died, no one could save the girl from the second man behind him.

He choose what he thought to be the right thing.

---

The girl was terrified but she would give in. Soon that man would bow down to her and…. do whatever he wanted to do. She opened an eye and saw him slowly coming closer. Her ears stopped to hear and her mind stopped working in the way a human was shutting down infront of the inevitable. The slim figure with an offhanging cheek became faster and fell towards her. Its head smashed against the wall slightly above her and he slipped down the wall with his head now rather on the right side off hers.

Its mouth was open and white barf was thinly dripping upon her t-shirt. The eyes were black pitches. She looked at its left hand that came to a still halt shortly before her chin upon her upper chest. She looked up and now recognised the dark figure that was standing about 7 meters away from her. Her vision was a bit blurry from the tears in her eyes. _Is that my saviour? Mom has always told me that nice people always have a guardian angel._

_--- _

He had shot the Undead right in the back of its rotten and disgusting head. The girl was looking at him. She had cried as the tears that had dried on her cheeks signalised. She was handsome: Natural blond hair, a thin shape - His instinct kicked in.

---

The phantoms figure stood still where it was andonly a second had passed. She had prayed to god when these… horrid people had entered the bus. Was this the answer to her silent prayers? Was this an angel? Or judging from its blackness and its…. aura of… she couldn't put the finger on it but something was unsettling her about her "saviour". The angel appearently had to leave because she saw someone stretching his hand on his schoulder…

---

He began to spin around to cover his assailant in a hail of bullets when he felt the creature tighten its grip of death on his shoulder.

---

The black angel started to turn around to face his friend who gently reminded him that he had to leave now, that his work was done.

--

The cold and unfeeling hand tightened its grip around the fighters arm and pulled him to its arm and owner. He knew what to do. He threw himself into the creature instead of letting it pull him slowly. His plan didn't work out entirely.

---

The angel bowed down in obedience before his master and seemed to be praying.

---

Almost nailed by the immense power that the no more alive muscles posessed he knelt before the Undead.

He didn't have enough time for the mp so he choose his-

---

While still kneeling before his _God? is this god?_ a small part of its black shape started to move a bit to its side, lower knee, and something shimmered in both of his hands.

---

He now had two metallic items, one in each hand and it had to work…. _For her_….

God moved down to embrace his son, his hands were shimmering. _Is it the angels wings shimmereing so nicely? Yes they are. Oh maybe he was a fallen angel and is now allowed to return to his father. I bet its his reward for saving an innocent and slaying these people._ Sorrow and pity filled her heart. _What drove these people to this?_ A more and more intensing shimmereing could now be seen. It lightened in regular intervals, they were still shimmering but now brighter than ever. _My sight! Its getting better again!_

Indeed, the sight was better now, but what she saw was not an angel and its wings…

---

While wielding the long knife in his hand he felt an emotion of safety going through his entire body. Or was it just the adrenaline? Even through the glove he felt the comfort of the blade and its wisdom. Patience came to his mind as well. He just had to wait.

---

"It's a knife! Oh god he will kill you!" "God" came down to his "angel" to finish whatever it had begun.

"NOOOOOOOO": She wanted to scream but her throat was totally dry. Almost in slow-motion the blade cut through air in an almost impossible angle and hit the man straight in the head. Both figures moved closer to the ground, the man to the opposite side from where the blade had hit his skull and the black shadow rolled on the ground and turned to sit on his right elbow.

"Ouuuuwwwww I almost balled out my shoulder." Slight pain was reminding him that he shouldn't move his shoulder like that again or it might hurt worse. But even that pain would been nothing compared to what he would have received when he hadn't done it."Huuffffff that was WAY to close. Now to the blond lady." He thought of _any_ woman as a lady. He had been raised as gentleman. At least a bit.

While Standing up he took the knife out of the freaks head and looked at the stained blood. _Hmm that will look impressive when im back home. Might even serve as evidence._ While dismissing that thought of evidence as nonsense, since everyone could order a K98-bayonett (which was an excellent long-dagger, tool and combat-"knife"), slice someone up and claim that her/he/it would have been dead already. _Anyway the girl is more important now._ He turned and would almost have shot the small shape that sped towards him.

Her arms found a halt at his back and she pushed herself close to him. Then she put her head on his right shoulder while the left side of her was face pressed to his lower shoulder. He was almost shocked. "Errrrr umm.. errr.. umm.-... "

PLUNK it made in his head what showed that his brain almost shut down to (very ) slow work at the fact that a girl was actually _touching_ him.

Young ladies (especially beautiful blond ones) didn't tend to do that what explained why he was surprised. At first he almost panicked and jumped to the side to avoid a lethal attack. He hadn't done anything else the whole day but that what wouldnt have been a good entry for the possible start of a relationship.

_No_ he thought: _Women dont like me. They like strong and atlethic morons without brain that can be controlled easily._ Girls were the only thing he had fear from. _In one moment they are nice as an angel to me and in the next they make me the laughing-stock of the entire class, working-group or whoever was around me only to enjoy the shattered and hurt look I have then... No I wont trust anyone again. Or maybe... No better not._

_--- _

"It's fine. You are safe now." She raised her head and was surprised to be almost at eyeheight with him. Hearing his voice and seeing into these eyes was calming. They were so filled with understanding and warmth.

"He…he (sniff) tried to-"

"Shhhhhh- he wont try that again now. No one will try that again. You're safe now."

"But-but-but-he" No single thought came to pass in her slowly "rebooting" brain. She awaited him to release that hug she had forced him to but that didn't happen. Instead the young man gently brushed her hair and head from the top to her neck again and again with his left hand. It felt so nice. She kept crying and felt somewhat safe.

_Mmmmmm I could stay like this forever _she thought when her sobbing and the flow of tears had stopped. He carefully turned himself at very small angels and speed to the sides repeatingly while taking her so far among to move her a bit. But he didn't turn too fast to make her have to move her feet.

She liked that and the feeling of safety and comfort it produced. It was almost like when Ron had comforted her at camp Wannaweep when she had been 7. It also made her a bit tired so she closed her eyes and enjoyed the comfortable silence around her and the hug as well.

She noticed him getting his right hand to enter his pocket to get out a packet of handkers. _Hmmm this is almost romantic... I bet he's gonna wipe the tears off my cheeks and say "You look so much nicer without them."_ Infact he was opening his mouth when the packet fell out of his small- and ringfinger only to drop to the ground.

"Oh FUCK stupid bitch-packet!" He said. She looked at him confused.

"Errrr sorry." He looked embarassed. "I know i ruined the moment. Sorry."

She just smiled at him and took his arm to her back again. He shot her a confused look.

"What?" she asked "Errrm" he replied a bit unsecure:

"I'm just not...much around girls. They usually avoid me like the devil holy water."

An unpleasant silence came.

"We must leave. I've got a car waiting for us outside."

"Ok I'll come. But what about…. Hope?"

The voice that replied was surprisingly soft: "You may never lose it! We can make it out of town!"

"I meant her!" She pointed towards the still alive girl that had screamed so much before and lay between two benches.

"Oh…." He looked sad. "Ummm… you go ahead and wait before the bus I'll take care of her." _Strange his voice is s cold suddenly._

"Ummm you gotta release me to leave." He said pointing back to the girl that was definately too close.

"Oh." She released her grip and looked at him with interest.

_We are almost as close as a couple! I hope I don't blush._ But right at that thought she did. Luckily he was to occupied with looking at the girl to notice.

"Okay but hurry please!" She pleaded him "I hope she can be saved!" Even with her almost none-existing medical knowledge she knew that Hope was injured badly.

"Cant promise anything, now go."

"Okay." She looked forward to have cheerleading practice with Hope again when she'd come out of hospital. Little did she know what would truly happen to poor Hope.

---

He looked after the blond beauty as she left to make sure she wouldn't witness what would happen. She could be useful if this was an ordinary medical thing. But even with ambulance and trained paramedic she was beyond recovery. And even worse:

She was about to _turn _any moment now.

She looked at him with a look of pleading and fear: "What are you doing? You should help me! I CAN'T die!"That look said. But he knew better and pittied himself and her for it. Her look changed into one of fear. It was her last look ever.

---

Bonnie was freaked out. She had used the lightsignal of the car many times and even saw something reflect the light everytime. And that MORON was STILL not back._ I hope he's safe_.-one part of her said in her mind. _Naaah he's just a moron. Wait he IS…. unnerving but… I dunno…_ While shuffling uncomfortably in her seet she kept on thinking about him: _But he sounds like he would actually... really... care about me…_

"Hmmm maybe I should talk with him about josh. Although...maybe not. Urrrrrr it's cold."

She heard a loud plop at her window and was surprised, shocked and irritated to see a guy pressing his mouth flat at the window of her door.

"WHUAAAAA!"

She backed to the driver's seat and said: "That's the most stupid way to go for a kiss, freak!" She kicked the plastic and made him fall off. If she had waited a moment longer or if she already had the treained eyes of her "companion" she would have noticed that this wasn't the _ordinary_ freak.

But to her luck the strange man found something more interesting after bouncing off the window and falling down. Something more _eadable_.  
Nothing happened after that except for that she started to feel a little cold until a blond girl came out of the bus, looked around, saw the car and made her way towards it. Bonnie recognised the girl when she got to the right passengers door.

"Tara?" "Bonnie?"

Both said in unison while stupidly looking at each other: "YOU? Here? Now?"

"Errr….I was at my party…and that guy, you know?"-

"Uuuuh I thought you don't like "losers""

"Oh Ummmm (her cheeks turned crimson) I can explain!"

"Well I can understand why you like him!"

"Noooooo! SO not!"-

"Sure Bonnie, sure" Tara giggled.

That slightly odd talk would have continued if the topic of the conversation hadn't stepped out of the bus with an ill-looking expression on his face. He entered the car without making ANY noise. Tara had sat down on the right backseat before that.

"Uhhh creepy" Both of the young ladies stated as he entered the car and sat down. Just before he could close the door Bonnie made one of her few jokes ever because beeing thrilled by the unique oppurtunity to make her cheerleading friend laugh and him scoff at the same time:

"What about "darkest night"? Get out you didn't say the password!"

She emphasized the password with a badly faked mocktone of his cold-as-ice voice while making flayling gestures with her hands. She expected him to put up a mock-fight which she was REALLY prepared for after all that waiting and freezing but he didn't. Instead he did something that silenced them for a long time. He put his still smoking gun with the shooting end upwards between the drivers and frontpassengers seat and said:

"She was beyond recovery. A tragic loss."


	6. A revelation will come

Silence embedded the car and its inhabitants for a long time. Everyone was deep in thoughts.

"Did he really? I mean…"

"Why do _I_ always have to do this? Don't they understand that it hurts? Hmmpfgh. Who should understand? THEM? " he looked at the two young women, the one beside him, the other behind. "Why aren't THEY having the traumas? Both of them did I save from death but still do they not grant me the comfort of understanding. It hurts so much… But still _I_ don't have anyone to comfort me…."

"Errrm," Tara wanted to start some conversation to clear the important questions she had. If he really had commited a such ultimate… crime was one of these.?

"My name is Maximilian. Field-medic, marksman and leader. Oh sorry, continue."

"It works!" she thought happily and continued: "I'm Tara. She is bonnie." Her sweet and honorst-meant smile did not higher his mood.

"Could you explain what exactly happened? I can hardly remember."

"Your brain mentally shut down to prevent your psyche from receiving exorbitant mental damage. Adding to this comes what whe medics call a temporary memory-loss caused by the"

"Short version." Bonnie interrupted rather rudely.

He cast her a dislike-showing look and continued: "That is normal after a shock."

"Umm what did you do exactly? I mean I-"

Bonnie interrupted again:"What happened to _her_? The tragic loss?"

"Please not now. I am trying to keep my soul and mind from shattering." his head fell down.

"Oh. I ummm understand." Tara said. She would ask. After having a little 'talk' with bonnie.

"What emotions?" She thought: "The guilt? The knowledge that we know about his doing, well at least to a certain degree. Could he do something to us? NO he wouldn't..or would he?"

Almost like having read her thoughts he exclaimed while lifting his face up and into the back-pillow of the seat: "You are not to be harmed. Neither by anyone nor by myself. I have my reasons for my doings. These will be revieled when the time has ripened. As harsh as it might be, not everyone has the luck you two had to be saved by someone who knows what is at risk."

Tara was confused. "Strange. He doesn't look like he would have enjoyed doing that. And he came to me into the bus to…. ummm. Why? Why can I not remember?"

The way he was sitting upstraight, but still deeply leaning into the seat made her think further.

Was this how a willing murderer looked like? She couldn't tell.

Bonnie spoke, unexpectedly and piercing the unsettling silence of the moment.

"So what did you do? HUH? Stab her? Shoot her?"

This gave her a shocked look from both the unsuspecting victim and the girl behind.

He looked frightened and even more uncomfortable("like that would be possible" tara thought.)

"Bonnie that was not fair! Whatever his reasons were-" she got interrupted by the pretty nasty brownhead. "Reasons for what? To murder?"

"Bonnie…"

"No. What he did to that girl was not fair!" In bonnies mind he was still the stranger who had killed josh. Her mind had sought a scapegoat and found one.

"I.. " He stammered, which made Tara feel even more helpless. She pittied him. He appearently felt regrets and was not ready for such a trial: "S-she w-would have-T—turned! I had to do it!"

"Oh yeah sure you where just to frightened of having someone who could threaten your 'master-position' ".

"I wan-ted to save her so much! I-I just-"

"Bonnie Stop!" Tara was more than shocked from her words. She was known to be harsh but that exceeded everything by FAR.

"You don't know what I saw-"

"Someone who would slow you down!"

"NO!" he was close to tears now "Don't think it wouldn't make me sad! I still see her pleading eyes! So innocent and helpless! She would have become what attacked her!" (he pointed with a more than shaking hand towards tara who suddenly shuddered at the thought of the poor Hope.)

Could she have become the same…way…or thing…like the men in the bus?

"She wasn't savable anyway and she would have attacked the blonde! I put my life in danger to save her but not everyone can be rescued!"

"From what? From your held-up complexes?"

"No from becoming one of them! One of those in the basement…"

"Basement?" Tare thought and asked after that: "What basement?"

"Where he murdered Josh!" Tara made a surprised and Bonnie a hurt face.

"It wasn't me! THEM! I tried to tell him but he didn't listen just like you didn't! You know it wasn't my fault. and and… when you saught the keys he stood there! (Tara looked curios and shocked, Bonnie just paled to a ghostly colour)

"Y-you.. You LIE!" Now it was bonnies turn to almost start crying.

"No he stood there but it wasn't HIM. His entire body had chunks of flesh missing and he had a sickened grin when he saw me. The grin only THEY can have when they feed on humans! His eyes were blanked from any emotion and life! When I shot out of the car and your neck got burnings from the cartridges…. I didn't tell you because I wanted you to not get even more traumatised then you already were! I did it to help and shield you! But obvously no one is giving a _damn_ about my caring for all of you and no one cares about MY sanity!"

"No." Tara threw in: "I care! Really!"

"PAH" was his reply: "I have been betrayed and used out by enough people and women are the majority of these soulless abusers!"

Tara wanted to help. "It wasn't your fault! We don't blame you!" She understood at least a bit of his behaviour now.

But Bonnie didn't. _Still._ "Maybe you should just leave." Still she was white as snow.

That must have been the final blow for his troubled heart. A loud screeching surprised the two girls as the brakes went into action, barely able withstand the immense powers they were forced to endure. The vehicle almost strafed over the ground as the anti-blocking system failed to control the wheels and lost the struggle of control over the souls they carried. After an 18-degrees turn to the left the silver-black 4-seeted BMW-limousine finally stopped.

He spoke with a broken voice:"So be it. Survive on your own." None of the girls fully knew what this had to mean. They knew that they were alone now but didn't understand what he fully meant with surviving. They soon should know. A small piece of metal went away from the siluette the vehicle formed and revealed a person dispatching from it.

The young man got out after taking his rifle. Its butt hit the radio and a song played: "Yes they know that you've hurt yourself anothertime, don't they know that your that your full of pain already? Yes they know that you've hurt yourself anothertime, Decadence isn't easy, is it?"

She could see strains of uncontrolled tears flow down his cheeks like a damm that broke after years of monsun-like rainfall. And she could hear the sobs. Loud and uncontrolled. She had never seen a teenageboy or a man cry like this. She had seen it a very few times when boys failed to keep up their masks of faked self-security and couldn't take it anymore. Mostly poor smaller and weaker ones that were bullied by jocks all the time.

He ran away towards a dark sidealley. Two of these strange people were standing before it.

"GREAT bonnie now you really pushed him too far! You've always been a bitch to everyone who didnt look perfect but this is really too much for even me to tolerate!"

Bonnie was startled: "I... didnt mean to-"

"Yeah sure you NEVER meant to!"

"I-"

"No bonnie this was it much!" Tara was really angry now. She wouldn't let that poor guy suffer because of a highshools complexes.So she got out of the car. "Oh my he's doing suicide!" She thought as the figure went into the other two. But she was wrong.

"I... really didnt want to hurt him... just. i mean.. it was so wrong what he did." Bonnies weak voice was heard behind Tara. Bonnie stood behind her.

"NO!" an angry blond responded "Thats why you never get a boyfriend to like you for what you are! That's why even Josh didn't want you! You always hurt other people deeply but now you even drove someone to suicide!" "But- I didn't" "NO SHUT UP! You are disgusting bonnie! You always expect anyone to just obey your will cause you look nice. And now that there was finally someone who didn't just want to get you in bed you rejected even that one! It's really overtime that _You_ finally learn your lesson. Rockwaller, (the mention of her last name instead of what everyone calls her startled her deep) compared to him **you** are a murderer! (Bonnie grew pale and looked shocked) You're just killing _everyone_ around you slowly and mental istead of shooting deadly wounded who don't have another choice!"

"Tara, please dont do this to me!" her eyes were in tears.

"No Bonnie its time that you finally learn that what you did and do is wrong. And if hurting you a much weaker way than how you heart anyone is the only way to teach you then it's more than fine with me!"

"But,but i like him-"

"Oh REALLY? Well you showed otherwise!"

"But I was afraid he would reject me!" Bonnie was crying now.

"No bonnie. People are a mirror. You get only what you give. I've been nice to him and got thrice as much back. I can only hope for your sake that he isn't gonna give _you_ back thricefold what you gave to him! And do you really think that you might get rejected would give you the right to hurt people in advance? I say no, bonnie. There is always a chance of rejection. But rejection can be done without that you are beeing hurt. But hurting people will always make them reject you."

"I- but..."

"No 'but' Bonnie there is no excuse for what you did. And by the way if you would act nice to people you could actually have REAL friends. For example like kim and ron! I'm your only true friend and I know that you aren't bad inside you just behave that way because you envy them! If you would have been nice to ron you would be his friend and not her. Stop to show yourself as someone you aren't and you WILL be liked. Not by anyone, but by some. And remember all the people you called losers? If you wouldn't have got your beauty as a present from nature you would be one of them. And they wouldn't reject you. Remember Bonnie: You get what you give. No matter what you always get it back but much more stronger. Get back into that car NOW or I'll hit you until you are blue and green!"

Bonnie complied, completely up in tears.

Tara didn't feel sorry in any way. It had even felt good to give that witch some of her own medicine. Even if it was just a small dose of what she handed out pot-wise. Just as she wanted to get in did she notice that the two people were literally hacked in pieces. She couldn't blame him for that. Maybe that is the only time when he allows himself to let his anger out. "I hope he can still contain that anger infront of normal people." But something else was there. Shiny, and small. It lay in front of the drivers seat of their car. "A cd?" She took it up.

"Bonnie?"

"What?" was the only thing the former queen, now beeing token from her throne, press out between sobs.

"Give me your CD-player." Infact it was a small protable tv-cd-dvd-multi-thing. So if there were any pictures or movies on it they could watch them.

Bonnie pointed towards her backpack, that she had (luckily) forgotten in the car one day ago. Tara looked closer at the CD. It had a small piece of paper that was taped to the cd. It read:

"Upperton Battlereport: 19.December 2006"

"Property of Lt. Berstein, Upperton Airbase, 3rd Parachute troop-Div."

"High Reward! Return this disk to any high-ranked military officer in the Tri-City area!"

There was another small piece of paper: it hung loosely, outright hidden underneath the note. It said:

"Max, we know that you can be trusted. Bring this disk to whatever Authorities you might find! Try to locate ANY military installation and tell them to inform NORAD to set up DEFCON 1. This is an incident that puts our country, no the entire human race to the verge of extinguishment. I legalize you to do anything necessery to finish the job: Lie, steal, decieve, betray, and cooperate with organised criminals if necessary. Also you are allowed to use lethal force by the 26th paragraph of marshall-law. Do whatever it takes to get the job done. I know that it is hard, but you are the only one who can do it now. Don't let the sacrifices we made be for nothing.

Underneath the text was a small stain of red. "Blood maybe."

Tara plugged the disk into bonnies player. Both of the girls wanted to see what would be so important.


	7. The revelation has come

ch 7 ( disclaimer see first chapter) I hope you like the story. Now you, dear reader, will see why this story is M rated.

The device started to hum and shieverd a bit. It almost fell from the place between the drivers and passengers seat. They silently sat on the backseats and kept waiting for the picture.

Small lights were flashing repeatedly on the small cd-player's side. So it had to work. After a moment a loading bar appeared. It said: Loading. The bar started at zero, only to be filled to 100 in two seconds. Nothing happened.

Bonnie mocked :"Maybe we should-"

"PLOP" a sound came. Then another: "Tschtht" A small picture of a man fiddling at something behind the screen plopped up. He stepped away and blocked the view on everything behind himself no more.

It was the inside of a big car. Or truck. The only light was dimmed and came out of a small red lamp at the roof. A few men were sitting in benches at both sides of the vehicle. They carried weapons. At the most far end of the vehicle was a double-door. So appearently this was a small truck, van or an-

"What a car is that? I never saw it before." The brunette asked her friend. She answered: "Dunno, maybe its a SWAT-van."

The entire picture shifted upwards and down. From the opposite direction of the car came a shout "Yehaaa biatch I hope my wheels are tasty! HAHAhahaha!" "Shut up Durbain! Just make sure we won't kiss a tree!" The other voice was going to reply but the camera-man shouted: "Silence!Both of you!" Everyone fell quiet.

The two girls looked at the persons inside the small and darkened room. Nearest to the hatch sat someone longgrown and thin. He had a somewhat bulky weapon (they didn't know that it was a M249 SAW machinegun) and wore a green vest and short pants in the same colour. Beside him sat a man who looked to be in his late thirtys. A long white t-shirt that said "Night of the living dead- Metallorama 2006" in bloodred latters and a baggy bluejeans clad his body. He looked like the ordinary street-guy except for the two pistols that boiled out the pants of his jeans and a long and scoped rifle in his hands. Opposite to these two four men in dark-blue clothing had their places. Both of the girls recognised these as SWAT police officers. Two had a weapon that was familiar : A small and handy machinepistol that was often held by policemen who were seen in riots that happened all over the world. Number four had a rather odd looking gun, featuring a round barrel. He took it up and looked it all over. Number three held what every policecar had as backup for harsh moments: A shotgun. Seat number 5 was empty. Number 6 had another mp-("Thats the word this guy I made run off used.") carrying policeofficer. But this one wore ordinary black police-clothes and not the combat-dress. Sadness and shock were written on his face. Nearest to the driver's door sat-

"Hey that's him!" Both thought, but none spoke. Tara pressed the stop-button and asked: "Did you see that too?"

"Yes and I have a bad feeling about this...just...doesn't it seem a bit weird that he is on a video with gunwielding people? But alone _now?_"

"Yeah that's strange. Maybe he left? Maybe because someone hasn't been nice to him ? (she shot bonnie a muchsaying look) Anyway (she shrugged her shoulders) We'll know soon."

"Hmmm right. I really wanna know about him."

"Aha- I see!" she giggled.

Bonnie looked at her friend and replied: "Just curious!"

Tara pressed the play-switch again and watched. The opposite row of people was filled with three normal policemen that had pistols in their hands and two other men.

These had green camouflage-clothes and helmets. Afro-american skin-colour and small glasses marked the first. He clutched a rifle that they knew from war movies they had to see in history classes because of barkin's will. In these movies the guys who had it always complained about that they had to clean it every few hours and that it was always "jammed". Barkin told them: "I always had an AK in the jungle. That thing didn't care about mud in the barrel."

Number two looked a bit sad and down to the ground, deep in thought. His skin was white and a bit pale. Nervous looks to every side from time to time showed that he wasn't familiar with whatever was going on. Before the camera stood the man that was either someone important or the only dude who managed to get the camera running.

"Hmm that must be their leader." Bonnie stated.

By lifting his body to the right a person standing in the middle of the floor could be seen. It wore a police-uniform. But its upper chest was the highest thing too see because the man was looking out of a badly made hole in the roof.

Tara: "Uhhh I bet this thing wasn't there when that thing rolled out of the factory!"

"Yeah just look at how badly it's made!" Both giggled and looked at the young man they both knew.

"He looks...different." Tara started, bonnie went on: "Yeah. Outright frightened. But he's got the same clothing. Hey look I think his gun is different from the one he has now." It was the same as the one many of the swat-officers had.

"So.." The man in front of the camera spoke:" My name is Lt.-"

"Chief! Something hit the recon!"

"Hey thats the guy's voice." Tara thought at this. The cameraman turned halfway around and spoke: "No need for paranoia. Now sit do-"

The young man stood up and raised his gun at the person leaning out of the hole. "Incoming!"

Just as the "chief" wanted to shout the roof-looker got pulled out of the car's inside and out of view. Something thin and black hit one of the men sitting nearest to the roofhole in the chest. Then a small black shape entered the van through the hole and another man shouted in pain as something hit his face. Max ( that was his name they remembered) Started and kept shooting at the hole and the black shape.Which were TWO black shapes now. One was pressing a man against the right wall and clutched itself at his midsection. The poor person screamed so loud and at a such high pitch that the speakers were shaking from the enormou bass. Everyone who was still alive took their guns up and started shooting.

One poor fellow got his arm among the weapon bit off from the third black shape. The shapes were fast and moved in a blur that made it impossible to see the exact looks of them. Everyone who had been near the hole was dead or screaming. And the others, except for the guy everyone called paranoid, sat idly and shot single yellow flames. Tara thought she could make out the form of one of the shapes "heads" but failed. Mainly because the man who spoke into the camera flew into it, making the video-recording device fall down to the left side. But the recording still continued, even if there were only sounds and not a picture anymore. Well, there was a picture but it only showed a dark-blue clad arm whose cloth was slowly becoming darker in colour. Because it soaked up the blood that was coming from a place the view couldn't show. The sounds of gunfire and two more screams came. Also three noises that made the girls shiver and almost throw up: Loud shreeking that could make anyones ears explode.

Then utter silence. Bitter silence. Until max's voice spoke: "Give me the bandage." Another voice :" He won't make it."

"No matter we have to _try_!"

"Trying won't get you success! There is no second prize in life!"

"I don't _need_ a first prize. I never needed that. I always tried to win. And that's what cou-"

"You never won."

"So what? I'm a member of the red cross and it is our highest task to protect life in all its human forms from harm and help it through any danger!"

"Ahhh srew you!"

A third voice suddenly rose from the darkness: "Sho-(caugh) shoot me. I don't want to become one of - of- (an even louder caugh came. In Bonnies and tara's mind a picture of a man coughing up blood came up.) them."

"No dude you can make it out! I only gotta stop that blee-"

"You know it won't work. Im bleeding my lungs full. You DO know what that means."

"Yes I do."

"Then you know the consequences. Please keep me from that."

Man number two interrupted: "Hey ! Youre not gonna... you know..."

Voice three: "He will put me out of my misery. Yes he will shoot me."

"Shut up and get the camera standing! Maybe THIS will convince the morons who still refuse to believe!"

"But..." Suddenly the roles had changed.

"Do it. Now."

"Okay. (voilently the picture moved back to its former stand-point.) Here you go." Voice number two was insecure now.

What they saw was a picture of ultimate horror. The guy with the "living-dead"-t shirt stood before the camera. His shirt was now as blood-red as the letters. The left wall was riddled from bulletholes. The entire car was scrap. The walls were covered in blood. On the right a man was empaled by a strange hairy leg that dripped a green liquid at the place where it had been shot through. His legs didn't touch the ground. Instead small bloodleaking limbs hung from the hardly as a human body recognisable thing. The rest of the legs (they were clearly cut into) stood still at the place where they had been when the man was sitting peacefully. Just like nothing had happened.Beside him the rest of a human upper-body that was cut from the left teigh to the right armpit in a straight line. The arm-stump that was still there had been cut off just in the same angle. Its arm lay on the ground before the mutilated corpse. The hand was still clutched around the grip of its pistol in a spastical manner. Like if the hand would hope that it could rewind time and prevent it's loss by this hopeless effort. The person that had been sitting on the opposite side simply got smashed into the wall with such a force that it's skull looked like an opened orange. The face was stripped of the skull to behind in a manner that made the entire head look like the man wanted to strip a full-head-clowns-mask of but stopped at the middle. Just that there was no face underneath the off-putten "mask" except the remnants of a smashed skull. Small wet chunks of the brain and a yellow liquid ran slow and patient out of their former prison and dropped in small ugly pieces on the shoulder of another poor man next to him. This one simply sat still and looked like nothing would have happened to him. If you don't mind the splitten head that rested in two parts of the respective shoulders. The rest of it filled up another heavy dent in the cars's hull through which small streaks of light entered the room light and battled it the even darker red lamp for surpremacy. The opposite side didn't look better either. One of the normal-clad policemen was standing at the wall with only held standing by one of the black shapes that still was resting on his body. The upper half looked rather normal (except for two holes made by bullets that had been accidently shot when the other man had been impaled by the leg). But the disturbing thing was that his entire stomach looked like it would have been sucked empty. Also the chest was rather flat. Cearteainly because even his lungs had been inhaled by the black thing, which was also responsible for the highpitched scream the poor man had given. Two other bodies were lying on the floor. The one was the man they had called "chief" with a small and thin leg sticking in his chest. The leg belonged to the third black shape that lay on the ground before him. It appearently killed the man as the last action of its life. Blackthing number three had been smashed to the exit-doors, dending but not opening them. It looked like an inferno of shells had hit it. Number two still lay "upon" the poor sucked-out policeman.

But the most disturbing sight was the black-skinned marine that looked heavily-wounded sitting on the left bench. Two feet away from him a pistol-holding max could be seen, standing on the opposite side of the now useless vehicle and wearing a very ill facial expression. "He spoke: "Im sorry. Really. "

"I know. Just do it."

The pistol made a DVUCK-sound, rolled back and then forth in its users hands. As result of beeing hit, the victims head rolled back against the wall, showing a faint smile. The "executioner" looked away towards the camera with closed eyes. Tears were running down from his cheeks. This picture burned itself into both girls minds like a steaming brand-mark into a horses leg. It was a picture that spoke volumes. A picture that became the novelization of tragedy. And the young man, forced to murder one of his friends he had fought to keep alive so hard, became the Idol of an anti-hero, the impersonation of the Pariah. In tara's mind he had been the saviour, in bonnie's the annoying but caring weirdo. Now he became somone who truly deserved pitty, help and a shoulder to cry on.

To everyones surprise a new voice opened: "Is it over? Can I come out now?"

On both sides of the screen amazement struck, as the even paler young marine hieved a corpse off from himself and stood up. He spotted the silently crying gunner. "Hey did you do that?" He asked while looking at his now dead comrade touching the executioners arm. The reaction was rather violently as the touched one started to keep beating the black dead shape that blocked the exit hatch, fighting for a way out of the terror he had wittnessed.

The last thing that could be seen was a hand reaching infront of the camera, as a short Shhhtz-sound marked the movies end.

No one spoke for over a minute before bonnie broke the silence: "Oh god and I even made fun of him. That explains A LOT."


	8. The prey becomes the hunter

ch 8 (Disclaimer: I don't own the Max payne video and pc-game. And I haven't chosen the runner's name because of it. Also do I not own The "Die Hard" trilogy and the "Dirty Harry" movies by Clint Eastwood. The rest of the disclaimer is in ch 1.)

The past is like a big black hole, always ready to swallow you to it's depts. The more you run from it, the bigger it grows behind your back. Every time you turn around to face it you land in a hole even bigger as the one you dug yourself before. And you only climb out of it to run again.

Max remembered that sentence from the intro of a game he often played. It kinda matched the situation. A lone guy with serious mental problems wich no one cared for who only lives to run from his horrible past. They even shared names, well almost. Very few people called him max, since he insisted that everyone should call him maximilian. There were similarities, but also differences. The most obvious was his jacket. Payne wore a leather mantle that went down to his knees while he wore a jacket that almost went down to his knees (only because of his shorter body).Payne looked cool and was respected by everyone since he was a tough-as-nails cop who didn't think twice about shooting a fleeing criminal. Or a criminal who carried a gun. max agreed with payne's point of view because it would be silly to carry around anything (especially a firearm) if you didn't want to use it. For example upon policemen who would arrest you. Payne was (among of Dirty Harry and John Mclane) some sort of Idol for maximilian; They didn't have their morality and ethic stand in the way when he wanted to just knock-out one of those bitches that made fun of him. He always threatened them that he would do so but since he couldn't, he was easy prey. And children could be monsters. Police "interrogation", mafia "offers that you can't turn down" and bootcamp "reeducation" were nothing compared to _children_. All these people did it for a reason and knew that a dead or entirely broken person wouldn't help them, tell them anything or fight for them. So they knew that they sometimes had to stop and had a more or less "proper" explanation for their dooings. And they left you alone when they where done. But not kids. Or worse: girls. No they did it just for fun. Or because that they didn't know that it was something bad and cruel. Max had known that it was bad to be mean to others when was 2. His father had told him back then and explained it to him. He hadn't understood it entirely the first time, so his father explained it all over agian with endless patience. But appaerantly parents don't have that time for "talk" or "doing something _with_ their kids" or "acknowledging their responsibility to give rules and safety". The only thing max had needed was love and rules. As long as he obeyed the rules he was loved. Very much. And the rules had proper reasons for themselves, for example his mom told him once: "Don't eat worms!" And he had asked: "Why? Jens does it too!" "Well you can get ill from eating worms." "That's no problem. Beeing ill isn't that bad!" "I mean seriously ill. So ill that you are not able to go out and play." "Oh that's not good ok mom no more worms then!"

"Hach... " he thought as his tears finally stopped flowing "It was so easy back then. No wait. It was NOT." Slowly some of the memorys that he had closed away somewhere came back. How he got beaten up for "talking so strange" how he had no friends at first in pre-school because everyone said: "No I don't wanna play with him he's strange" How he got mobbed by an entire town when his family had to move away because his father got restationed for the hell-knows-how-often time. And how he almost drowned when that girl had pushed him underwater in swimming at the seventh grade and the techer didn't believe him. How he got shoved into his own wee when he was pissing at one of these in the wall hanging toilets. It all came back.

"No I can contain it. I won't cry. Everyone hated and picked on me when i cryed. Everytime that i showed my weakness, my emotions."

But all of his struggles were not helping. He had to let it ALL out. "Okay fine then ill let it out. But i want someone to hold me while I do it." For the first time in his life he wanted somone else then his parents to shield him. "That blond owns me a favor. And she helped me with that bonnie-bitch. Yes she would do the trick. Or rather not. She will laugh at me like all the other girls." He had always been rejected by girls. He was too "strange". Well the most only said something like. "You don't look good." But he knew the thruth: He was too smart for them! "Yes girlies only want morons with muscle and money. Not someone who uses words they hear for the first time and always wins in serious discussions and arguments. Im too mature for them. Or no wait... it's... that I am talking very grown-up and behaving almost entirely like a grown-up and... they aren't like me! YES that's it! Because I am further than them they don't understand me, and humans fear what they don't understand! Simple. But no...wait...they don't fear me... I would not have any problem if they did cause they would have left me alone..."

He climbed a trash-can, then a trash container and made it to push himself up the roof of a small shop by using a loose brick that gave him a small place to put his foot on. The he sat down on the middle of the roof and put his head upon the knees.

"They hate me. And because I was always too weak to punch them up,to defend myself... cause of that I was the perfect target."

"Fine if no one wants to be my friend and / or hold me when I need somone to hold me..." He started to cry and did so for over and hour. To his "luck" the streets have been empty and he could only see a car in the distance from time to time. As he was done with letting all the pain out, there was a numbness he never felt before. All of his feelings and his knowledge were only a small part of his mind( even though they were a bit bigger and more... intensive then those of most other people) and they hadn't filled out what was empty now. "Hmmm if someone would be near me now I would cearteainly be able to fill that void with happiness and other good stuff I never had.Even with loving and very caring parents your life can be hell. Hm... Rejection was everything I received from others. Except for very few people who were different.So why should i fight for them?" He thought over all this and came to a clue: "All this emptyness had been filled with pain and the wish to help others even though they caused that pain. I alaways was a lonly one, partly cause I thought of myself as more intelligent and competent, partly cause just that belief made me act arrogant even though I didn't want to act that way. So that's why they hate me...not because im strange, but because I acted arrogant AND strange all the time...They kept telling me I should change myself but i never could. No one likes me." A minute of thinking passed. "I think now they will have a true reason to hate me." he thought. Everything that had been left after his out-letting was anger. And pain. Anger for those who caused the pain: Bullies, dumb-o's moron's assholes, people who didn't listen, people who didn't want to acknowledge the fact that he was smarte than them. And girls. "Everyone hates me. But from now on I will hate BACK!" So he got up to wander. He did not know that he would soon meet two people with (weaker hatefilled) but still similar minds.

"Drakken are you sure that this is the right place?" Asked a beatiful, pale and black-haired woman in a tight suit coloured green and black.

"Shego, I thought that plan out so it has to work!" A blueskinned man in a darker blue labcoat with short pony-tailed black hair responded.

"Oh so you didn't think out all of the three-bazillion other plans that failed?" came as from sarcasm-dripping reply.

"Ah finally some luck. A car to steal. Excellent." A slightly changed maximlian thought while lying flat on the edge of his hiding-spot.

"Drakken it is late in the night and you KNOW how I am when I don't get my sleep!"

"Errrrmmm (the doctor tapped his chin) fluffy? No wait you are ermmmm grumpy! Yes that's it!" Shego just slapped her forehead.

"Anyway I'll get my device from behind while youlook out for you-know-who! MUAHAHAH victory will be mine!" He bent over his seat.

"Hmmmm the woman seems dangerous. The blueman looks rather harmless, although... never underestimate your enemy... everyone can become an efficient battlemachine if given the right reason to fight for. I'll just shoot them and..."

Shego drove around a corner. Into a shopping mile. "Hmm sweet. No stupid mall but instead nice little shops. Maybe it wasn't SUCH a bad idea to get this lair near the princess's town." It was pitchblack night now. And it began to snow. "Oh great and this stupid thing still has no -

"Aha change in plan. Excellent. I must conserve amunition anyway.A hovercraft?Hmmm excellent. Hahaha Now it is MY time to shine!" And so he hid like the predator of the night he always has been, but now was the first time he LIVED like the person he truly was.

"Damn that's cold (she shivered) I hope Drakken is finished with this soon . _Maybe_ I'll drink a warm cacao with him later. Strange since that moodulater-thing I am somewhat nicer to him..." she shouted:"DRAKKEN hurry up or I'll kick your sorry ass to hell-knows where!" Neither she nor the busy doctor noticed the black predator that leapt from about a meter above towards them out of the shadows that only tortured minds know.

"Where is that thing, and why can't Shego stop shouting at me?" "AHA" he shouted while claiming his prey, a small remote-like device. Little did he know that somone was about to claim HIM as prey. He got up and turned around towards Shego, only to start his infamous ranting: "MuahahahahahahahahahahUaha this will give me surperiority over HER! HAHAHAHAH!" The car shifted a bit, Drakken beeing the so-not-paying-attention-while-ranting sort of man didn't notice. Shego did. Her mistake was that she just thought Drakken would stomp, but still she turned around to make a sarcastic comment.

She saw a small dark figure (it's night,no light in the car except the controls) that slowly rose behind drakken, like as if it would have jumped and now got his legs back straight. The shadowy figure was humanoid. And it had a long one-handed knife. Shego's fast senses noticed that and she wanted to shout but it was too late. She could swear that she heard the black shadow say: "You have surperiority over _no one_."

He grabbed the left arm of the man and pressed the hand flat on his right shoulder. At the same time he sled his right arm wielding his K98 bajonett (excellent long-knife-dagger combination) carefully to not harm his foe accidently underneath his right armpit and so that his hand was exactly upon the bone of his right shoulder. The knife's blade was not placed at his enemy's throat in a horizontal line. No it went from the fleshy and not hard main artery on the left in a low angle higher so that it pressed itself right upon the small ball-like thing inside the throat and pressed higher up-right-right against the bone of the jaw (or pine) to skull connection and even to the small earlobe. This gave him the advantages that he controlled the shoulders, felt any attempted move (and stop them if necessary) because of that, had multible weak-spots of the human throat as possible targets (main artery, can be pressed for unconsciusness, the adam's apple for high pain-infliction, the jaw-skull-connection that could hurt like hell if pressed hard and could be broken WITHOUT instantly killing the enemy and, more as a small bonus, the earlope. Also he had control of the left hand(and arm) by having it underneath his right arm so he could easily use his left arm freely while his foe couldn't at all. But he left the right arm free on purpose. That gave his fiend the wrong safety-rendering feeling of beeing able to do something. If humans were caught up in total they tried to struggle free, which was a problem on that small vehicle. But if they are completely free they run away. But he needed control. And control was caging him in without letting him know that he is a mere playball of his master' will. What for possibilitys did his victim have? None that the daek predator knew. But he would not underestimate his foe. He was not even PREY he was just a small piece of the key to survival. Just a mere little pawn in the sick game of death. Max knew that he has been such a pawn. But that's the difference between him NOW and him BACK THEN. He knows that he is just a small figure in the enormous game of death. He won't do the mistake to believe that he was in control of everything. Earlier he was nice. Full of consideration towards other people and their emotions. But no longer. And just this coldness gave him a small bit control over a few things.

He could act and every one else had to _re_-act. He could _choose_ while all the others had to follow. And he liked it that way.

"Drive. Out of town. Now."

He ordered. He liked that and his cold voice too. Normally he would be thrilled and think something like 'oh this is so exciting' but he didn't. He was a professional now. The day that ended in 2 or 3 hours was the end of his life as an innocent teenager. Now he would enter the gory world of grown-ups. And he wasn't afraid. Even the battle for naked survival hadn't stolen his "emotional innocence" Even the mobbing he had to suffer all the years hadn't done that. Not even that nerving bitch named bonnie had succeded. They all had only prepaired him to finally confess, to acknowledge it to himself: He was an unfeeling, calculating, manipulating Predator and Killer who would do (almost) anything to save himself (and those few he truly and deeply cared for). His new life started with a simple but effective threat:

"Or I might harm your precious Blue-boy."

And boy he _enjoyed_ his new life.


	9. Another pawn enters the plot

ch 9 Peoples militia

The blonde boy and the redheaded girl that made him run around the globe sat in an airplane. They were just returning from one of their missions. He looked at the intriour of their "ride". It was a rather old cargo-propeller-airplane. But its cargo had been delivered a long time ago so that there were only the two, a bench and his molerat. His friend kim, an athletic young teenage-girl with long red hair was sleeping with her head on his lap. He himself was a blond teen with small freckles in his face. Both were clad in black shirts and brown baggy-pants. Also Kim had a small backpack with several funny and usefull gadgets. He didn't have a such. In fact, he dind't have many things she had. For example a perfect body, popularity and many friends. But therefore he had his pet rufus, a small naked molerat that could speak. Rufus was always there for him, just as he always was there for his beloved pet. He looked at his sleeping friend. "She is so marvelous. But everyone thinks we would be a couple. Don't they understand that we are only friends? I mean, I would like to be more than a friend for her but she wouldn't want that."

She looked so sweet lying there. So innocent and nice. And amingly beatiful. Everytime he looked at her he had to fight the strong urge to tell her. To tell her everything. Beside that important thing was something else that he wanted to know from her: "Why does she want me to be her friend? I don't have anything these sport-jocks like this josh mankey don't have. And they have even more. On the other hand... would they be willing to risk their lives for her like I do? No they wouldn't. And would they always play the distraction-part? No they wouldn't. Their egos could not take that. But mine can. Badly. But I could do it so much easier if everyone else would acknowledge my doings more." Playing the distraction so that she could fight and act freely was a bad task. No one said thank you. No one said that infact they (both) and not just her saved the world. He always was depressed when he thought that no one gave him credit. Except her. Everytime he thought of all these bad things he only needed to remind himself that he did this for her. And that he was rewarded with the best friend one could wish for. He knew he would be lost without her. Everytime she helped him with homework, protected him from bullies or was just there he felt safe. As long as she was around he was happy. He hoped so much that she would finally realise that all the football-jocks were nothing for her. And that she was hurting him with always crushing at one guy and saying : "Oh he's the one!" only to come back and cry at _his_ shoulder everytime. Why can't she see that the guy that is always there for can be a boyfriend too? And even the best she could want. No one understood her the way he did. And was understanding _not_ the basement for a such relationship? Well if it is, like he believes, none other than himself understood her.

The entire plane shook shortly because of an airhole. She almost fell down but he caught her at the tigh with one hand and the other was attempting to hold her at the chest. But he managed to stop his rogue-gone hand. "No I'm a gentleman." he thought and put his hand back at the leaning bar when he caught himself looking at her chest. Just when she was bending a bit. Quickly he looked away, beeing red on his face "Whoooow no dude that's wrong." His eyes started to wander again but he looked away just in time. "Think of something else... something else... Christmas! That's it! I still have to buy a christmas present for her!" So he carefully slipped away underneath her body and heard slight moans of displeasure. "She liked that... hmmm" his thoughts were drifting away to other things:" I bet she would like it too if I'd massage her neck... and then her- WHOW dude not again!" He shook his head rather violently to get the thoughts away from his mind which produced a smile on the man's face who stood behind him.

"Bad thoughts when looking at a sleeping girl? My my the youth these days..." The man said in an obviously amused voice.

"Oh errrrrm..." Ron was caught in surprise. "I errm ."

"No need to explain kiddo I've been young once too."

"Okay.. she's just my friend you know?"

"But you want her to be more than that."

Ron just blushed and looked to the ground.

"Haha i knew it!" The elder co-pilot laughed:

"Im just so frightened i could break what we have already..."

"Just be carefull and it will work. And break what? She couldn't stand beeing without you for just two days!"

"How you wanna know?"

"I found my wife the same way and boy: the best couples are those that have a friendship like yours. But nothing will happen if you don-"

Ron interrupted him: "But she's always after goodlooking sport-boys!"

"And to who do you think does she come back everytime?"

Ron didn't know anything to respond. Instead he thought. "Should I really try it?"

Like having read his toughts the man said:" Boy if you fail she'll be angry for two days and then come back to you. _If_ she runs away at all."

"But... "

"No but young man. As we say in the troop: Who dares wins!"

"Who dares wins..."

"Exact and heres your chute."

"How-"

"No one would move away from such a moment without a reason."

"Oh..." He took the chute on and double-checked if all the straps were adjusted right. He jumped into out of the plane after telling the man to keep her informed that he's shopping. The man had only replied with a slyish smile and said. "Go for it youngster! You will do it!"

Ron was confused to see that the town underneath had a few big yellow lights. "Fires..." Also he saw small red flashes and yellow lances of light that cut through the darkness in a way he didn't know.

As he was about fifty feet above ground he saw that he was not going in a tree or other place where he could wrap himself up like a UPS-package. Normally that always happened when he paradropped out of a plane. He saw someone pointing at him and yelling something he couldn't understand. Mostly because of the loud noises that came when some of these lances sped through the night. He dropped to the ground and put the chute off his body. As soon as he looked up he saw somone reaching towards him with his left arm. His Right arm held a... "Gun! He's got a gun. Oh he's a policeofficer. No prob then." The officer grabbed his arm rather violently and pulled him towards a door. He wanted to resist but the man was way to strong. So he came along in his typical, slightly goofy walk. As soon as they were through the door it was smashed close. The officer shouted at him "KID if I had been a runner you'd be dead now!"

"What do you talk about?" He made a scowl.

"Doesn't matter take this-" He put ronald a rifle in the hand.

"Wha-"

"SHUT UP! hold it this way:" He aimed at an imaginated foe with his machinepistol. "Then pull the trigger. Always aim at the head! If you fail to take one down with two shots minimum you're TOAST."

"But-"

"JOHNSON show the kid how to shoot!"

Another man in swat-clothes came into view. "Hey kid im your teacher now. Imagine I would be one of them." He started to walk towards Ron while moaning and strangely shuffling.

"I'm confused-" He was thrown down by the man when he grabbed rons shoulder's and threw himself at him, putting both down.

"DEAD! That's what you are now DEAD!" He shouted. Remember: A zombie will bit your brains out and not tell you to stand up again!" He helped Ron back to his feet.

"You mean zombies like the "zombie mayhem slaughterhouse 3: return of the brainless" zombies?

The man thought for a second while crossing his arms and looking at the ceiling. "Yeah but they hunt us and not us them. And you WON'T be able to just press reset or load from the last savepoint! And there is no "life-bar" if one of them hits you with an axe or so you're DONE FOR! This is not a game. One hit kills." Then he muttered not quiet enough for ron to not hear it: "Better hope that you're don

"No need to shout but is this really happening? I mean..."

"Sure kiddo just watch. We are even in luck that we made it to build a defensive perimeter around the twons core, using barricades and buildings as outposts. We are under siege but we hold out rather fine until now. The hospital, shool and most of the city-area are under our control. But that doesn't mean that youre able to walk around alone and without a gun. They are focused at our defense-line so that means that they won't wander the whole town and run to other cities. Or they are just not as active as they are during the day." Ron had listened to all that while walking up stairs with the cop. Now he stood before a window that had an iron-plate neated against it. The man opened a small hatch for Ron to look.

The street was covered in muddy snow. A few man-like shapes were lying on the ground scattered wildly. Nothing moved and nothing was out of the ordinary. "There's nothing important. Are that dead people lying on the streets there?" He put his arm out to point out of the window but was stopped by a hand of steel clutched around his arm. "Never put you head, arm or something else out of a window."

"Why?" The man only pointed towards a corner of the room. Ron followed the "order" and saw a man sitting on a bar-chair infornt of a bar. "Nothing specia-" the man lifted his right arm, which had been covered by his body before and it was nothing else than a stump of the upper arm that was covered by white bandages. The bandages were bloodred and soaked at the end of the stump. "Oh..."

"Yeah sad isn't it? That's the chief. Well it is my task to show you how to shoot properly. Follow me."

Ron obeyed and walked absentminded after the swat-officer. "By the way my name is james. And you are?"

"Ron stoppable."

"Aha well I guess you'll be called kiddo by everyone since our chief called you that way. Anyway welcome to the pack."

Ron shook the outstretched hand and asked: "Pack?"

"Yeah strange name isn't it? Well but it fits. Chief said some youngster had told him that name back in upperton."

"Back in upperton? What do you mean by that?"

"Well, that epidemic or whatever it is started in upperton. No one was prepaired. So the whole town got butchered in half a day. Well and the chief lead some group of SWAT who had done some practice outta town. As they drove back into the city they noticed that something was different. Well they were the only ones still alive 'cept a very few cops and some civics. As they reached the policestation they got rescued by some of the survivors form some really nasty creatures. Well and they all tried to escape town. And... well... some of them are still alive and kicking as you can see. We managed to get here before the hordes of evil and could convince some of the other people at the MPD, Middleton Police Department that is, to join us in barricading at least small parts of the city. We thought that our messenger had made it through but appearently he didn't make it."

"Messenger?"

"Yeah some young dude. He was better off alone. Said he could cope with ithe stress alone. Said he could sneak trough 'em. He could. At that moment it was just better to let him do his own thing. Anyway let's start shootin!" James said with a certain glee in his voice.

On the other end of the town two people tried to get to the second police-department of middleton. Middleton basicly had two because Lowerton had three and that had still not been enough. But spare building-space was rare so they had build it as a mobile reserve for lowerton inside middleton. Especially usefull during the everyyear Super-bowl rampages.


	10. Man I need a donut!

ch10 The truth hurts. (Thoughts _thoughts_)

"So you're telling me this is true?" Policeofficer Grunningham asked the two handsome girls who stood before his desk. He was a man in his early fourtys, with short black hair that was already in a nice white-grey above his ears, but not on the top of his head.

"Yes!" They both said in unison. "He saved me from a bus full of murdering people!" The blonde one said.

_Oh yeah sure and I'm superman. If something like that had happened somone would have told me._

"I was at a party when that guy came through some tunnel my family didn't know. My boyfriend wanted to get this guy and traced him into the basement he had come from.They fought and that guy came up again. And when he opened the door I saw these weirdos standing around him. After that he shut and barricaded the door with a couch and then I heard Josh scream! They killed him!" 'Brunette' , as Grunningham had named her in his thoughts, had put her hands angrily on the edge of his table and was shouting at him.

_Yeah right girl. That movie could be one of my son's horror movies. Something like "Attack of the monster-spiders 3" or so._

"If you look at the video close enough you see that these are real people sitting there!"

"And dying there." 'Blondie' threw in while looking at him worriedly.

"Well ladies, im sorry but this 'movie' isn't and evidence in itself a-"

"Then look at the stupid note!" _Man this brunette chick is furious. Note? which one? Oh, she means that piece of paper_

He bent over his leaning position , took the small paper and read it through.

_Battle-report Upperton? What kind of crap is that? And there is no 'paragraph 26' in marshal law!_

"Ladies, evidence is like algebra. You need at least two knowns to get the left unknown. But this is not even one part of it."

_I should copy that CD for my son. He always wants the newest horror-movies. And these spider-thingys really look awesome. I dind't know that computer-animation was that far already..._ His thoughts were interrupted by the brunette shouting at him. Again.

"Are you stupid? Don't you get that these are REAL PEOPLE?" _Real-life-dummies, that's how they make it look so real!_

"Lady" he truly tried to stay calm but this girl really overtested his patience. "Stay calm. Insulting officers wont get you anywhere, except into a one-day sobering cell."

The girl crossed her arms scowled her face and made a "hmmmppf" sound.

"And from who did you get this CD again anyway?"

Now Blondie spoke up: "From that guy on the video (she points at the stopped picture of the moment before the man standing in the floor was pulled out) who wears that leather-jacket. We... sorry I met him in that Bus and after that he left us and dropped the CD by accident."

_AHA- by accident. Teens always come here and tell stupid stories only to laugh at us when we seek ghost who aren't there._

"By accident you say. And where did this person come up to you two for the first time?"

'Brunette' un-crossed her arms and spoke in a hardly controlled voice: "On my party."

"Through a secret passage in the basement?"

"Yes."

"And he got followed by strange people who murdered your boyfriend?"

"Yes." Bonnie couldn't think of that moment clearly but she fought to remember AND remain calm. Both sadness from the death of the guy she thought of as the hottest one ever and anger for this man's stupidity were nagging at her.

"And how come that there are no other witnesses?"

"He shot the stereo and everyone ran way. And then he let somone call the police. That's why I cant understand that you don't know about this!"

"Everyone ran away and he let someone, that means not him and not you, call the police. And then he...shot... the sound system."

"No he shot it with this thing he called "mp" before getting the cops called.

"Shortcut for Mashine-pistol. And how did that waepon look like? And who called the police if 'everyone' had run away?"

"ARRRGH HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW!" Bonnie shook her arms before her chest before crossing them again. She was truly enraged now. She had heard that policemen asked stupid questions but that was the top of it.

_Ah I found their weak spot. She's finally shouting. If people shout they do it to mask their lies._

Blondie interrupted: "It was black, he held it with one hand at its grip unless he shot with it. Ummmm (she closed her eyes to remember the picture in her head which was mistaken as imagination by the police-chief) and it made a strange 'tatt' sound when it shot."

_Oh great discription. That limits the range of weapons to barely a thousand. I know dozens of mp's who have that profile. Mac-10, Uzi, Tec-9, Mp5-k..._

"And it was about the length of a rifle. But it was shorter when he put two straws back to into the gun."

"Which straws? And two?" He asked while making a confused face. _Maybe it's a Mat-49? No too old._

"Ummmmmm... the straws led to his shoulder and ended at the grip. But when he got into the car after the bus-fight he had putten these somewhat back or behind or away. That meant that the gun was shorter because of that."

_Hmmm a folding shaft. Maybe it's the galil? Or the smg-version of it. Or... no wait._

He slapped his forehead with his right hand while turning the small video device so the girls could see it the picture.

"Its that one right? An Mp5 navy-version. Often used in police-units." He pointed at the picture of the young man holding the said weapon.

Bonnie : "No that's not the one. It was...different. Just a different one." She was at the end of her patience.

"But it has a foldable shoulder-piece that can be put into the weapon."

Tara spoke against him. "Bonnie is right. It had two foldable...shoulder-pieces and it looked different. And it sounded different.

_Oh yeah sure and I'm santa. IF that person would throw away one of ... no the best mp known to_ _mankind he truly was insane. And by the way this whole story is so stupid, irrational and they even remember only the half of it. And I mean TWO folding-pieces?_(He didn't know that these two were only the straws for the U-shaped shoulderpiece)._Maybe I can get them away someway else..._

"Miss." He turned the device again, folded it and switched it off: "You should return this item to the person it belongs to. I am sorry to tell you that this is not the police's task."

Tara, sniffing out that they had lost wanted to let him do at least one thing. "Could you please at least phone the other policestation of Middleton and ask for one: a teen-party at the rockwaller-estate with several dead persons and two: a bus crash with also many dead people?"

He made an angry face because of beeing remembered of the fact that they were only the reserve-station and were rarely told anything. "I could do that but-"

Tara remembered one, maybe important, fact that needed to be told. "And please ask if every, and I mean every victim has been killed by bullets in the head. Well not exactly everyone...more...ummmm _oh that makes me look untrustable_ the people who are dead for a longer time then the rest. And ask for bitemarks at the victims that haven't been shot. That's it all, thanks for giving us your time."

Bonnie looked at her with an angry and confused look that said: "Why leave? He isn't convinced." But she was pulled by taras arm gripping at hers softly while the other arm wrapped around the CD-player..

When they were out of the office Bonnie asked: "What are you thinking we-"

But got interrupted: "He wouldn't have tought about it cause he thinks we just want to make fun of him. But now we have him curious about if we really were at the places we said and if what we said is true. And that will, hopefully, lead to that he's gonna think about the video again. And maybe he will do something against these people then."

"Wow..." Bonnie was surprised. "That's awesome! How did you-"

"Don't think that beeing nice doesn't mean that you've got tricks. And I've got plenty of tricks to manipulate people without hurting them.

"Oh... and I've got the bad ones then?"

"Let's just say that... sometimes argumentation is better than putting someone down or using your popularity."

"Oh. So you mean argumentation would have been better at this max guy too?"

"For sure." _She finally gets it. Slowly, but she gets it._

While the girls were walking back to their car Police-chief Grunningham was already at the phone, impatiently waiting for someone to pick up. And after what seemed like an eternity, somone did.

"MPD Office."

"Hello this chief Grunningham. I need to-"

"Chief Grunningham?"

"Yes from MPD-reserve station." _You stupid prick. Not even the police knows the police. No wonder gangs laugh at us.  
_

"Oh, sorry." _Yeah you better be sorry, dumbass._

"First: have there been strange happenings at partys, especially at the Rockwaller estate? Second has there been a bus crash? And third: Do any of the Victims show head-wounds caused by machine-pistol rounds and are there ANY bitemarks?"

"How come you know that? It happened only 15 and 23 minutes ago!" _If you buttmunches would actually TELL us things..._

"Not important _you moron_ just send over the damned files. And do it now or Ill sue your ass at the internal's cause off hindering invstigation of multiple murders!"

"Okay relax I'll fax it over."

"Good." He hang up.

He waited impatiently at the faxer downstairs. His colleagues looked at him curiously since this was the first time ever that he was so impatient. _Dammit I should have kept that video or at least a copy of it._

Also this was the first time that he let send so many papers at a time. "Never waste resources! Especially not paper!" Was what he always said. Everyone was irritated even more when they noticed that their chief, the example of a perfect officer was literrally feeding on these papers like some sort of reading-vampire who was short before starving. Then his son opened the double-winged entrance door and waved at his dad. Which was not unusual. No the policemen always tolerated and even appreciated it when he was around. Sometimes he even was allowed to participate in things that were ONLY for police-men, like firing guns at the range or the all-year police-only barbeque.

Everybody knew and liked him. He always helped everyone and at one time even got the missing clue at a crime-scene. That 16-year old longgrown boy was some sort of inofficial deputy and mascot for the MPD-reserve.

"Oh hi John. I see you finally got the "Zombie-madness-2000" game?" one of the overtired officers greeted the young fellow.

_Zombie-madness-2000_ it echoed through Grunninghams mind.

"Yeah so cool at first the dude said I'd be too young but then I told him that his license was overtime and that he wouldn't like my dad to know about that. And oh-so-fast he said I'd be mature enough for an exception. John never used his father's status and popularity. Except for special cases where people obeyed rules that were just dumb.

_Zombie-madness..._

"Hi dad! I finally got the game! It's so cool! You can only kill 'em by headies now and they truly BITE now! And they finally look just as rotten as they should 'cause of the new turbo-engine! SO the improvement from part two!"

_Zombie...Zombie-madness...Headshots...Bitemarks...Faster-than-normal rotting people..._"Who attack others..."

He looked up, the reports he had read just a moment ago said it out loud. _Damn I should have believed those girls._

OH FUCK WE'RE SCREWED SO BAD!" Everyone (even his son) looked shocked at their chief. He never swore or shouted. Except something REALLY bad was happening. Like with that mass-murder in Upperton near that old warehouse two years ago.


	11. Hmmm omelett!

(Disclaimer see first chap. thoughts _italic_)

Ron was confused. He had stood at the window of the building together with james for only two minutes and already his attention slipped away. Just like his thoughts were at a ceartain somone. _I hope she is alright. If everything what james told me is true she is in true danger._ "Hey wake up dude!"

"What?" James voice had surprised Ron:" What is it?"

"Enough standing guard. Now comes the most important part. Follow me."

"Okay._If she knows where I am? No way I left her without- No wait the pilot! But he only knows I'm shopping. Although shopping at 9 pm isn't the best idea..._

"Well... We're here dude. Prepare to listen intently."

"Okay" _Where's Rufus?_

Just as he thought that a small movement came from It's pocket and made Its way towards his tigh.

"LEECH!" Ron looked up to see that James had his weapon aimed at him and was about to fire. The sleeping soldier in his green combatdress he had seen in the office while going to the window didn't move. But 'Chief' did. With a Swiftness and speed Ron wouldn't think a crippled man could posess he jumped from his bar-seat and came towards him with a Pistol in his left hand.

"No wait that's just my molerat!" Ron exclaimed: "My pet! Really!"

James did not respond except steadiying his gun to proper aim at the boys head. Chief stood in ten meters distance now and aimed his pistol at him. A small reflection of light caught Ron's attention as he saw a shadow sitting in a dark corner on the second floor.

Rufus came out of the pocket and said hello with his typically cheerfull voice. Then he spotted the people. And their guns aimed at his 'father'.

"Boy stay calm and throw it away." The voice, appearently belonging to the chief, spoke."We won't hurt you then."

"Rufus is my friend! He is a naked MOLERAT! Not some strange weird Bio-experiment!"

"He might be right. Leeches look different and can't talk."

"It TALKED?"

"Yep." Ron didn't recognise the voices, cause their owners had been in a different room when he entered the warehouse.

"Well..." James spoke up while lowereing his gun "Sorry friend. Just old habits. You know, the sort that keeps you alive in combat."

"Oh ermmmm okay. Explain me what's going on!"

Chief's voice halled through the room with an authority no one could withstand: "Then come and take a seat boy. Much to tell." He waved towards the bar with the stump of right upperarm. After that both took seat and chief started to talk. After taking a sip of whiskey.

"What to tell?"

"Ummmmm what kind of enemys do you know?" _That was in the intro of zombie-revenge. I guess it's a good question to ask._

"Hmmm first the standart undead: slow and harmless as long as they are not too close. One header and they are finished. Then there's the class two "U" as we call 'em. Some are very fast, but the normal ones aren't to slow either. Imagine a normal guy sprinting towards you. Can be killed by normall shots, that means no header necessary. One or two in the chest and end. Then there are the-"

"U'S! 2! 200METERS 12o'CLOCK! Ron turned around to see the man at the window when Chief packed his houlder and pulled him off the seat. Ron staggered and fell, but Chief kept him up with an iron grip. _Man that guy must have muscle. And what does that guy mean- oh no wait I know what he means. An attack!_

"Young one the time to show your value has come. Stay calm and follow our-and my-orders. Then you'll probably be fine.

Ron ran behind the leader and got up the stairs. Everyone, including the former sleeping soldier stood at the same window. Ron didn't know what to do and hessitated.

"Ron stay by my side!" It was James voice. "Okay, I'll come!" He goofy-walked his way towards the dark-blue clad elite-cop. and-

"Take it. Look at the door. If one or more of them get through the door shoot at their heads. And you must shout "breakthrough" when they come. Understood?"

"Ummm" He looked at the rifle James wanted him to take.

"It's a 12 Gauge Benelli M3 Super. It has 8 shots. Here's the ammo. "He put a small card-box into rons hand and the rifle into the other. "Strap it hard at your belt. The rifle's loaded like this:" He took the rifle and showed a small grey latch at the underside, then took one of the red cylindric things he called 'shells' and put it into the space underneath the latch. The latch became a small ramp and -whuup- the shell disappeared into the gun. "Everytime you shot you have to pull this here back and forth. Then the old and empty shell gets replaced by a new one in the gun's 'clip'. But that only works as long as you have put shells into the gun before. Always keep your gun loaded with at least 2 shells you hear? And everytime your outta ammo, that means the guns empty, scream "clip empty" out. Got it?"

"Yeah but do I really have to shoot these peo-"

James eyes, the only thing seeable through his cotton-mask and helmet showed anger. "They ARE NO HUMANS! They might have been once, but now they have lost their right to live! They are already dead but they refuse to accept it and kill everyone still alive as revenge!"

"So it's only right for us to shoot?"

"Well, duh. O'course it is! To protect us and the ones we love. Ummm... everytime your mind refuses to shoot just imagine that this U would attack one person very special to you. And if you don't kill the undead bitch your friend,mother,father,sister,brother, whatever will die. Got it?"

"Yeah... but I'm not familiar with...guns." He eyed his shotgun critically. "You'll learn it quick. Trust me nothings better that practical knowledge. And now take a kneeing position there and put the rifle onto your knee. That'll bring better aim. Got everything?"

Ron nodded, Rufus, who sat on the shoulder of his 'father' now did so too. "And keep your pet in the pocket."

Rufus made a disappointed sound and ran back into the pocket. Later Ron would be thankfull for having him where he cant get lost. And so Ron made his way to the point James had shown him and kneeled down. The rifle felt unfamiliar in his hand but he had a foreboding feeling. At first Ron was bored. Nothing happened, nothing made a sound. After a minute of waiting one of the men at the window whispered: "They saw us!" And Chief replied: "Alright men let em come closer, on my signal!" Ron was bored, but his senses were highpitched and thrilling from something he never felt before. _Is this adrenaline? No I'ts stronger than that. I have often fought agains Drakken and the Adrenaline isn't nearly as...stimulating. _His thoughts drifted back to kim. And just as he wanted to slap himself mentally for his impatience, a voice sad: "Now!" And all hel broke loose.

James looked over the aiming-device of his trusted mp5. He didn't use the laser-dot-display-scope like his two friends had done. He brought the small needle that was surrounded by a small circle into the block. The block and needle together formed a solid line and above this line was the cirlce. He brought the circle to cover the head of an Undead and the line to cover everything underneath the chin. He pulled the trigger. The yellow lance of light that followed was merely a small dot that couldnt be seen by the marksman because of the recoil that made the entire vision go above the target for a very short moment. The person, a woman in the late twnetys with brown hair down backwards. No fanfare, no bloodsplatter no split sculls. But that's what he loved his small weapon for. It was just pure efficience. Nothing fancy, it only did it's job very nicely. He had shot with many other weapons. Some were too loud, some too inprecise, some too heavy, some too bulky. But this one was the best balanced weapon he ever had. It was 'weak' in the sense that if you didn't hit any vital spot of the enemy he not even staggered in his walk. But in exchange for that you got one of the most precise, cheap and efficient weapons. His two comrades had always mocked about their mp's: "Too weak, not enough range, bad caliber bla bla bla." _If they can't handle their weapon properly, fine. This is a gun for professionals._ He often saw gang members spraying wildly on full-auto upon both policemen and undead. They had used uzi's mac-10's and all the other useless crap. Sure if you let somone get up to 5 meters infront of you you can hit the head too. But that's not what guns have been made for. They have been made to keep his enemies FAR far away form him. _I bet this dead bitch won't mock about 'caliber deficites' ._ He loved his mp5. It was as precise as an assault rifle (and even more than some he had practised with) but didn't have to pay with high weight or bulkyness for it. His mp was the king of all machinepistols. He never understood the idiots who shot their entire 30-shots randomly at a crowd and then mowled about that no one went down._ That's their fault not the gun's._

But anyway he gave another Undead a good clean header while his neighbour, 'Proctor' mowed the mob with his gun. Well he could effort it. He had the squad's only machinegun. One hit was enough to rip a chest open or cut a leg off. _Well that's no prob with a 7.62 machinegun from hell. No wait, its a hk23. That's from germany and my mp is too. Damn those dudes make great guns..._

Right when he wanted to make a header at another one its head was hit by something else.

BLAMMMM

Everything went in slow-mo. The round entered the skull, bent it a bit, intruded harder, then made the eyes get a dumb look. After that the entire body started to be pulled backwards. The head went among, as the round was about in the middle the, the eyes flew out of the their sockets, driven by a stream of red-yellow liquid that had chunks of brain and bone in it. It's lower jaw lost the connection with the rest of the skull and was only more carried by the the skin, but just that was starting to rip up and so the teeth flew out, driven by the smashed brain that now was more an into-cut thing with very much stashed red-yellow stuff between it. Its face now looked at the sky and the most interesting part of the whole theater began. The head was literally cut into like an axe would have hit it from behind and the whole brainmatter that hadn't already exited through the entrywound, mouth (or what was left of it) the empty eyesockets or the more and more ripping skin. In what seemed to be scream the not entirely lost mouth (the jaw had been broken and disconnected but the skin still held the loosely hanging bonestructure. At least at the left side) opened only to spill out another sickening chunk of blood, bone and brain.Then the mouth fell off, giving free look upon the even more outspraying internal things. In the end the left two samesized chunks for brain flew out of the ripped open scull, only to impact on the snowy street and the undead behind him. In the end the body collapsed like a no longer held sack of potatoes to smash its former brain at the landing with a loud and stomach-twisting "BLURPF". The brainmatter flew away to the sides, painting the snow and its qonqueres in a faint spray of red. And, to James very amusement, the broken jawbone had remained and was flying into the eye of a nearby teenage-boy undead. The small razorlike thing got catapulted by the amazing powers that were unleashed when one squished his own brain. _I wonder if these hk guys build brain-splatter fueled jaw-bone shooting guns too. Oh man max would love this sort of humour._ Teenage-zombie's skulls can normally withstand a small bonefragment. But not if it entered through the eye. Which it did in this case. The right one plopped open and its white chunks flew wildly around, leaving the teen standing slackjawed and with the head tilted towards the sky. If one didn't see the bloodspilling hole where normally an eye was, one could mistake him for a mentally disabled person. One of the eye's beamingly white chunks was still glitshing down a yellow stain of brain-stuff. Suddenly James was reminded of something: _hmmmmmmm OMELET _ A smile crept up his wet mouth when he saw the teenie-U's t-shirt that said:

"Do me, I'm the cook!"

_Yeah right I'll 'do' you all-baitches!_


	12. Proctor to the rescue

Sorry for the writing-mistakes I've done before. Disclaimer is in ch1 and al always thoughts are in _italic  
_

Proctor shot in a straight line into the wall of wandering corpses. His friends did the same, while the boy was waiting for the breakthrough.

Everything was loud, but Proctor was used to it. In Fact, he loved the noise his weapon made. Back in upperton he had only used short bursts but now he could do full-auto. And boy he loved it. An idea came to his mind. _Yeah that will be fun AND usefull! _He jumped down the stairs and found another window. But that window wasn't what he was looking for. There was a small fenced area on the ground level just beside the only entrance to the warehouse. The U's couldn't enter except by climbing, but the fence was electricly secured. Which meant everyone who touched it would be toast. _Heheheh yes let 'em burn..._ Proctor was reminded of the time he had an improvised flamethrower. Basically it had been one of the huge bottles with gas inside that he had used to melt together or apart car-parts when was just a carmechanic. On the label stood: "Extreme caution! Flameable" As the door to the opened he remembered the small blue working-flame that had came out of the rubber and metalvent. And how everything that encountered said flame had molten to ash. Even these crawlers and arachs hadn't tried to get him when they saw what happened to their queen. _Oh yeah that had been fun. That biatch-spider-queen was immune against bullets but not against flames! MY FLAMES! _But there was a ceartain pitch of sadness among these memorys because one his friends, Dullie, had been eaten alive from the inside. The arachs had captured as many people as possible to feed their queen's eggs with. These small, not even tennis-ball big eggs had been embedded in the persons body. And after one truly painfull hour they hatched. And after that the small spiders or insects (the queen had lain both crawler- and arach-eggs) ate through the body. But only parts that weren't necessary for survival. Somehow they kept their victims alive to the very last bit, only to have a fresher meal. They had been searching their lost friend when James and max had voted for looking in the spider-cave. And they had been right. Damn too right.

Proctor (his real name was ben doorman) had seen three bottles of the same inflamable gas standing in that "encaged" area. _Man this is gonna be so cool._ He wasn't the brightest, even he knew that, but he was a nice person. And he was strong. Very strong. He could carry two men around and still run. Which he had done when two of his pack (as chief called it) had been wounded. Nigel and max had tried their best to bandage them but it hadn't worked for both. One died while getting his cut-off leg bandaged because of high bloodloss and the other died later. _Nicole had said something about 'trauma' ._

He dismissed these thoughts, a task was to be done. Botlle number one had a carrying grip, number two had a carrying belt and nr. 3 had nothing like that. _Whow now thats against rule 13 of the 'fire-protection-laws' every thing that can explode must be removable fast. Removable... cool a new word!_ As said before Proctor wasn't the brightest, but no one knew more about fire and cars than him. In fact, he could burn or fix everything. Except computers. He hated computers.

With bottle number two on his neck and number one in the left hand (his right was still holding the machinegun) he ran towards the stairs. But after ten steps he had to figure out that even he couldn't carry that much so fast. So he he dropped bottle one carefully at the door. Then he looked at it..._WHOW COOL NEW IDEA!_ But he would fix that later. He dropped bottle two (which would become flamer number 2) and got the last bottle outside into the house. _I don't like outside. It's cold outside._ Closing the door realization hit him. _Oh man it ain't gonna work as flamer! It doesn't have a vent! _

Dissapointed from the fact he wouldn't get to burn some things again he-_wait I can use the bottles as...as...what did bruga call it? Oh yeah! Explosives! HEHEHEHEhaeheh._

The execution of his evil plan shouldn't take too long. They were gaining ground. And without the machinegun mowing the legs off from them they were even faster. So bottle three had a vent. But no grip at all. But that was good. He put the gas-container behind the only entrance door, opened the vent a small bit and got out his lighter. Just as he was about to fire up the lighter and hold it into the stream of gas the voice of his old master Mr. danville echoed through his mind: _Boy what did I tell you? Never come in contact with a gas flame! Always at least 40 centimeters safety-distance! Oh yeah the safety distance man I almost lost my hand! Thanks Mr. Danville!_ So he got up and started to search, but mr.danvilles voice returned: _How often did I tell you to never let a gascan open when you leave? Oh yeah better turn it shut. _And after closing the vent and making sure that the whole wouldn't explode by doing so he started to search for something long, thin and burnable. And while he did so the memorys flooded through his mind.

Even after his death Mr. Danville was watching over him. And since he had no son and no one close, he had given the car-station to proctor. That always filled him with proud. _You're not smart but no one can get a car repaired faster than you! That's why you shall have the place when I meet the big one!_ He had told him. And one day, Mr Danville was getting more and more ill back then, they went to a man that was called "lawyer". About laywers proctor only knew that they lied and betrayed and stealed from you everytime they could. _Never trust a lawyer!_ Mr danville had told him. And lawyers had to do much paperwork. He hated paperwork and everything that related to it. So another reason to hate lawyers. You just couldn't get something usefull out of paper. Mr danville had been some sort of father for him. His dad wasn't at home the most time and his mom rarely had time for him. _She always went to that guy she called "massager"._ When he was very young, his parents had a fight about the massager and his dad called her a whore. Proctor didn't know many things back then (which was normal for young kids) but he knew that a whore was something...bad of sorts. Not evil bad or bad bad, just a thing or person that didn't do a good thing. After that fight he met Mr danville in the car-shop below of their apartment and had asked him if he could stay for a while since his parents were angry and stuff. And the (back then rather middle-aged) man had accepted. They had spent the day. Mostly proctor asked him things and danville always answered, no matter how stupid the question was. In return proctor brought him tools like screwdrivers. When he returned home his mom had been angry at him. For the first time of her life. _Where have you been? We worried so much for you!_ she had asked. And he had said:_ At Mr danville downstairs. _After that he spend every day with mr danville. He got helped with homework and helped him with the cars in return. He rarely spend time with his parents, who were at home even less than before. One day he had asked if he would be allowed to sleep at danville's place. He didn't like the apartment from the beginning, but fully alone it was just creepy. And so they grew closer, Mr.danville bought a second bed for proctor and even gave him pocketmoney. Which his parents had never done. At the first time he was irritated, but danville had told him: _That's pay. You get paid when you work for somone. But I don't work, I only help! _he had replied. _That IS work my boy. And now go and buy some sweets._ Proctor went to the store but got intercepted by four bullies. They had beaten him up and stole his money. After that he had cryed and Mr danville had lend him his shoulder to cry on. The next day they both went to the store and met the bullies.

_What do you want old man, are you his dad? _One had mocked him

_Sort of. Have you touched my boy?_

_Sure old man what do you wanna do against it?_

_I'll give you old man!_ Danville had shouted at them while beating them them to pieces. _If anyone touches my boy again you WON'T wake up in the hospital but in a coffin!_

The jocks, and everyone else who had been mean to him for not beeing smart had left him in peace after that. But Mr.Danville got sued for the 'Unprovoked attack' on 'unsuspecting helpless teenagers'. He had almost landed in prinson cause one of the bullies fathers had bought a star-lawyer that crossfired Proctor. They were about to lose when proctor had said something, even though he wasn't allowed to speak: _It isn't fair that these teens may beat me up, steal from me and get away with it! My dad never helped me but Mr danville did! And you wanna put him in prison for that! It isn't fair that people who protect the laws and week people are punished for that_! _No wonder everyone's stealing and in gangs!_

The lawyer, smelling an opportunity to get even more money for a harder punishment of danville, had tried to trap proctor:

_So your father is not there for you?_

_Yeah he's always on business-trips with his secretary and mom always visits her massager! _Proctor hadn't known what that meant back then but he knew it wasn't good: _They should get into prison for leaving me alone all day! If I wouldn't have Mr danville caring for me all day I'd be sitting infront of the stupid tv all day! And I would drop out of school course Mr danville tells me everything I don't understand from school while the teachers don't! _(the jury looked a bit shocked at that statement)

_So Mr danville isn't your father?_

_Yeah but I wish he would be! He acted like one and not like my stupid dad! _(Mr danville had almost cryed from happiness )_ And if the dad's of these unfair morons wouldn't drink and go away all day they wouldn't be so dumb too! My parents aren't even here NOW! But Mr danville is! And in the end he gets beaten up by you _(he pointed at the lawyer) _for helping me! It's just not fair, not right!  
_

Luckily, Mr danville had explained him later, that had destroyed everything the lawyer had build his attack upon, and made it used against him. The lawyer had tried to show proctor as an emotional incompetent bullie and his attackers as victims. But the jury became convinced that Proctor was the victim of bad parentship and that Mr. danville had indeed acted in defense of his 'son'. And by that, the court decided that proctor was innocent. Later the bullies got sued by several other parents and kids who now had the courage to stand up against the "Bloodhill gang". But, also proctors parents had been attacked by the goverment agency for youth safety. They split up and his mom, who had to care for him, wanted to move away. But proctor refused, ran away and hid at Mr danville. After two days the agents found out and got him back to his mother. And Mr danville, instead of attacking the agents like he first intedned to do, made a written wish to adopt proctor. Which needed much paperwork and again lawyers. But after one month (which had been the worst time in proctors life ever) he finally got back to his beloved Mr danville. After becoming sixteen he started his job as carmechanik in training and was officially (which means even more paperwork and lawyers) Mr danvilles adopted son and apprentice. He hated paperwork and lawyers so much since then.

_--------------------- _

_Yeah that were cool days._ But now was more important. He sought for something long and thin. After a minute he found a piece of lumber lying on a working-bench, took it, set it on fire and ran towards his newfound trap. _Nice flame that will burn their legs off._ he thought while putting the small thing near the again opened gas-stream.


	13. Highjack went wrong

Sorry for this rather short one, but im a bit at a lack of time just now. However I'll keep posting new chaps at least weekly. Disclaimer in first chapter. And I'm REALLY sorry for the many mistakes in chap1 but I don't know how to correct them! Reviews might help.

Oh and i especially thank everyone for reading so far, I was a bit sad when I saw that only 6 ppl got to chap 9 or 10.

The weird hover-car device sped through the night with its highjacker oblivious to his foreboding doom.

Shego was surprised, but not frightened. At leaston the outside. But her mind was brooding: "If you do anything to him I'm gonna blow you to pieces!" She hadn't done that before but there was a first time for everything...

"Be quiet and drive...shego" His eyes narrowed at the last word. She shivered. _he knows my name? How long has he been listening? _

"Get out now before I get at your ass a-"

"And who controls the car then?"

She startled for a moment: "Autopilot!" And got up the seat. Between him and her precious doctor was one row of two seats. She got ready to jump at him by putting her left foot upon the arm-bench whe Drakken screamed, his girly voice only beeing kept low enough to not break your ears by an unhealthy sound coming from his left hands wristbone.

"Continue and he is dead. Now drive."

"Dooo ashhh he sayssshh!" The blade made it impossible for Drakken to speak well. "To the lair!" That sentence came out clearer because the long knife had lowered a bit.

They stood like that for over three minutes, no one moving, the whoooshing-by landscape changed from the inner-city to suburbs.

She send the young man (normally shego wouldn't see a danger in this silly-looking person but the knife at her boss's main artery said otherwise) her best death-glare that even "princess" never endured for longer than two seconds. But nothing happened. He returned the look and Shego got met his eyes, who were a similar dark blue to the one Drakken had, but small parts of a strange matt green, grey and blue merged to a unique dark blueish colour around the black circular center. The iris was the slightly gray-lightblue-weird-and-matt-green surrounded by a very thin ring of blue-black darkness. And since the iris wasn't easy to see against the dark colour and since it was small, one could mistake his eyes for pure black. Except for everything that surrounded the eyelenses and were part of the eyeballs. The glasses and the stoppel-beard made him look silly. His short-grown stature surely didn't do the opposite thing either. To Shego he was some sort of teenager-man-child mix with most of the late teen, some of the child and a bit more from the grown-up. But the leatherjacket was the top of sillyness. He didn't look fat, but round in it. And the brider shoulders combined with the shortness of the person almost made sheego laugh. A small smirk came across her face. _Go on, make the first step! _She knew she could judge him on how he acted now. She would knew if he was insecure, icecold or whatever inbetween only by seeing any reaction._ Come on BOY make the first step, just do it! _Shego, already one with lousy patience and a high temper when it came to people-skills looked at the doctor and saw pure fear in his eyes. They also pleaded him to do something. He wouldn't try any attempt to free himself. So it was all to her again. She really didn't know why she stayed with drakken. He was useless in battle except (sometimes) against the princesses friend ron. She didn't like, no she outright disgusted her. But she truly respected the blond young boy. Whatever he was up against, her, drakken, huge destructive bots or even monkeys (she hated monkeys even more than he did), he always fought. To him it didn't matter that he would lose in the very most cases. As long as he could help his friend, the princess, he fought like... _I don't know. But this boy is even sillier than ron._ The boy was even a small bit shorter than her and that made her laugh. Just in front of him and her boss. Very heartilly. She almost began to cry from the immense stupour of the situation. Everything was funny in that moment, the stupid boy with his moronicly emotionless face, the lair and the mountainside behind them that slowly rose from the darkness infront of them, the fact she barely made it to put the green fire out that engulfed her hands before she clutched her stomach. Even that her cheeks, mouth and stomach hurted a bit from the laughter didn't matter. The blood on the long knife was not important either, just as drakken getting pale as a corpse was funny too. It was all so funny at that moment.

Except one thing.

"Your amusement shows me that your "friend" is disposable." _Now what does that mean?_ And with that he released his right hand from drakkens left chest, not ennough _Huh? whats happenin?_to let him free or allow him to struggle hard enough to liberate himself. _What- oh shit-_No, only enough to turn the knife so that the thumb was on the rear-end of the grip_ oh god please no!_ and to highten the entire knife-holding hand beside drakkens head, _Oh no ive gotta do something oh god! _ready to thrust the blade into the poor doctor. Shego could barely see through her tears of laughter but realised what would happen VERY soon.

"SHEGO HELP argghh help now! _I want to but my body doesn't obey! Stupid laughter!_ARGH NOOOOO!" The boy's right shoulder got a bit back to gain enough power for the thrust, while drakken struggled to get free. _He won't make it no he will oh stop lying to yourself _He fumed, his legs gave in but the boy's grip was somewhat iron, so he _Oh please fall down and give me time to save you!_ didn't fall but came to one knee. _NOOOOO_ The knee that made him go deeper in a way that made it easier to stab him of course.

"Don't!" The laughter was still a bit in her voice and she couldn't manage to get her hold back because of the pain in the stomach.

"Please don't!"

The knife's long blade stood in the air, and she was glad for it. _At least I've gained some time...I couldn't stand loosing him..._

Drakken had the shock written upon his face, but a also a bit of relief,as thedark shadow spoke: "So he IS important to you... interesting how people realise their havings only in the face of of loss." But the weapon remained in its place."Convince me of his importance."

_Oh crap..._she didn't know he was just playing on time, the further they drove away the better for him. He could only win. Or so he thought.

"Ummm _I'll beat you to a pulp when you finally let him go.. _He is my boss and.."

"The personal part." _Oh no don't make me say this..._

"ERmmmm i don't think this is important."

"Oh. Disappointing right doc?"

The trapped doctor could only respond with a grunt. The knife rose again. Its blade reflected the green light shegos fists created in an almost hypnotising manner. But she had to focus.

"No! He's important to me and um he erm he... " (her shoulders slumped down) "I mean I can't live without him! I don't have anyone else to go to!"

His eyes did not change, but his grip did. "So be it." Drakken was thrown forward. The surprised man fell onto the passengers seat beside the standing and visibly reliefed woman. He impacted the seat with his stomach and, as the result, his lungs got sucked empty. He would not be able to fight for at least a few seconds. As her gaze landed on the now safe doctor she noticed that his head slowly went upwards. _He isn't injured...good. Now to this stupid useless-_ Her thoughts were cut off when she heard the familiar crack of the steering-wheel when it moved. She looked behind her to see that his head had met the steering wheel, intended or not, she couldn't tell which. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, the autopilot had all control and couldn't be overridden before beeing turned off, but since they were in a 100 yard distance to the lair as the sensors showed that they had entered "homezone" and the hovercar was slowing down to stop at the just that moment and switched itself off. Normally no problem.

Normally, that is, with people like her and the doctor, a rather rarely used word.

And drakken, beeing in the not normal situation of shoving the steering wheel (he hadn't liked joysticks since the first day of his existance) up-left, made the entire vehicle turn right at a still high speed. Shego saw the cliff ahead. Underneath that cliff was a river. The car would blast. Which wasn't what worried her. The fact that they had to walk around the ENTIRE 4 meter high cliff because it was so steep was. They would need very long for that, at least an hour or so. And she needed a bath. A long bath. With very much shampoo. That guy could be dealt later. Now it was:

Bath or no bath.

So she put her attention to drakkens moronicly placed head. As long as it was where it was, she couldn't redirect the 'car' (It was basically a pickup-cabrio with yellow halfed round balls at the whole underside) and that would mean: no bath.

So the not very polite "lady" kicked her bosses head with a meaniness that put her sayings about the doctor earlier _an absurbum_ .

After that 'nice' doing _I could have plasma-shot him out of the way _she made the vehicle do a sharp turn to the right. The entire car barely avoided the 'cliff' but got up the side at a high angle. Drakken began to fly out of the whole vehicle and shego tried to grab him with her right to keep him sitting but instead she missed him by mere centimeters and saw him fly out of the car and, while screaming her name all the way down, heard a splash. After looking inside the now completely empty vehicle (she had braked hard) she noticed that the guy wasn't there either. _Oh great not even steam to blow off. _She would just prolong her bath a little longe. _I don't care if drakken mourns over the water-bill! I savd his butt again. And now I have to get him... or... hmmm_

She made a choice that only shego could make.

_No I'll bath first... he can wait._


	14. A fight that can't be won

Hiho I'm back with chap14

No matter how many they shot, more came.

_Now is the right time..._Chiefs voice boomed through the small catwalk his fellow troops had occupied: "GRENADES!"

A second later two plop-sounds came. One from Rockwaller's M203 underslung and the other from rattings M79. He traced the two grenades while they kept cutting their way through the air to deliver their deadly cargo. And they performed their task very well. The others used the very small brake to reload emptied weapons or to draw out their own hand-grenades. The first 40mm, a simple scatter-grenade, made contact with the raised left arm of an unlucky undead and exploded right on the spot, showereing everyone around him with lethal shrapnel. The entire left wing of the undead attack-line staggered ,fell to the ground and about 20 of them didn't come up again. The advantage of this lay more in the halting of the enemys attack than to kill them. In fact the grenade hadn't killed nearly as many as it could have. But, instead of killing a bit more it stopped down about of 4 dozens of them. Which was an invaluable advantage. Somehow this broke the will to attack and the fastness of the most "enraged". This came because the most of them had crippled legs both from the shockwave (which wasn't big as beeing a scatter-grenade) , but they kept limping, crawling or just strangely hopping through the tornado of gunfire. The detonation lightened the air for a short moment, just enough to see the flash and the true amount of flesh that made its way to their position. He had estimated them to be about 200, 75 normal (the ones that only go down by headshots) and 125 fast ones. The fast ones differed from the nurmal undead in the way that they were still dependant on their bodyfunctions, even if much less than a normal human was. And they couldn't run anymore as soon as they had crippled legs.

The other grenade however was an illegal one, even for military use. It was napalm. He had been truly amazed when his teams deceased explosive-specialist had made some from common soup and a few detonators. After that he even made good use to an exhausted 40mm by using a homemade c4-charge to replace the charge that shot it through the air. The small bomb-device now was above the unexpecting two crawlers that had hoped to bee masked by the mass of undead. He looked at his right arm, cut off right underneath the elbow and mused as the grenade "exploded". _you fooled me once but not twice_ After that everything was almost as bright as day when the small device plopped like one of these surprise-eggs with all the confetty inside. It sprayed its napalm, which enflamed instantly after beeing released from its prison, splitted on a nice degree above the mass of blood. He smiled and felt like if the illegal fire shared his amusement. _Sure its sadistic but why not enjoy what you are doing?_ The red flames embedded themselves upon the bodys (and plenty of heads) and glued at them like super-fast glue that was used for space-repairs. His smile broadened even more when he saw that the liquid made of fire ate its way into the bodys with infinite hunger and with what seemed to be and unearthly precision and... joy. Almost like this fire would be alive. _I'd give my other arm to be this fire now... _

The normal undead (he refused to use the word zombie because zombies were basically spirits with rotting flesh, so still -somehow- human) didn't bother, they just kept walking, shuffling, crawling or whatever made them propell close to their food. But the "enraged" as he and his men called them did bother.

If screaming from inhuman agony and pain while your body is slowly beeing _eaten_ is what you call bother. Eaten by flames.

"HOW IS IT TO BE THE FOOD, HUH? BITCH!" He heard his pyrotechnichian ratting shout with happy sadism in his voice. He was no DEMO-trained one, so nothing with the fancy claymores and c4, but he could set hell itself onfire. _He's obsessed with fire. He want's to burn everything to ashes. _But that was usefull. _Sure he is a psycho, sadist, pessimist and cynic to the edge, but devil himself can't have a better pyro-maniac. _The only thing he knew about rattigan was that he was firefighter (ironic huh?) with an obsessional love for the burning element. He opened the barrel of his grenade-launcher and put the old grenade out. Right when the barel opened a small puff of gun-powder came out of it and blasted rating into the face. Chief would have estimated every _normal_ human to turn away in diguist, but not rattigan. He inhaled the smoke and what missed his mouth went to cover his face even more coal-dark than it was already. He smiled his insane but somehow contageous grin. Then he kissed the grenade. It had a flame-symbol painted to it. _I still don't get it why he was so obsessed with painting it so well when the thing would end soon anyway? _He got his explaining after that thought.

Ratting gave his grenade a short and well-planted kiss. The item kept small black marks where he had put his lips upon. "Burn 'em to hell darling!" Then he smashed it into the chamber, closed it and aimed. Chief wanted to shout at him but the man shot before he could so.

The second grenade dispensed its fire over the middle of the now crackling front of undead. The flames dispersed upon the wandering corpses to desintegrate them totally and send them BACK to their graves. But not before feasting on them.

----

Now chief really understood why napalm was forbidden. He had seen the movie of the running vietnames children and their burned skin.

But a often tv didn't even scratch what he saw now. The enraged scremed to the top of their lungs, even when the first one's lungs where already reduced to ash that still -somehow- kept sending out the screams of the forsaken. Sure, the enraged were insane bastards, only interested in killing (but not eating) their enemys. They felt no other emotions than pure hatred against anyone who hadn't the sickness inside him or her. But he knew that there was still a small trace of humanity inside of them. Even if they couldn't feel any pleasure, love, or other positive things. They still had minds and... hearts? Each and every one of them waved their arms and hands in feeble and useless attempts to get the burning liquid off their bodys. And how loud they screamed... _This madness must stop. I must make it stop. _The poor undead (yes in that moment he pittied them) faced something that was more hungry than they were. More dangerous. And it was an undefeatable foe. Everytime they tried to wash it off the liquid only glued harder and got even more space to burn upon. Chief saw one running around like a marathon-runner screaming louder than anyone else while waving with his arms frantically. He only got his arms on fire and finally collapsed. Right into a crawler that head been invisible to that moment. Chief could swear to see pure fear in the three red eyes of the insectous creature before the burning shape, no longer differable if it was male or female, or human at all, fell upon it. It released a loud shreeeek before it fell to the ground, on top the heavy burning figure. Chief couldn't believe his eyes when the flames let go from the coal-blackened corpse to befall the insectous creature entirely. They crawled upon the crawler-called creature like a thousand small ants. The creature screamed even louderwhen saw its invisibility disappear and the green blood spread around in a pool. The fire sucked up the most before it even left the wounds it had come from, and the rest was mopped up by a small dispatchement of fire. The entire picture had made a somewhat... organic impression to chief.

He shook the horrid pictures of black skelettal corpses away for a moment and started shooting at the left normal ones. They were the real problem. If they got in hand-to-hand with those it was all over. So he aimed his colt goverment towards the head of a member of a 12-"man" pack of type-two ones who had made it 20 meter-close. The round hit the head clean and made an eye explode before the former- business lady slumped hard to the ground. But before that she took one down among her with her mass. Suddenly the pack lost its speed and group-feeling as two of them fell.

Their group-instinct was their strenght and weakness alltogehter. _A strange phenomenon indeed_.

The tracer rounds kept dancing through the air, out of the "bunker" into the -still- oncoming mass of flesh. The loud gunnoises and the sick sounds of meat beeing torn into pieces by the vast firepower kept filling the air for another couple of minutes, as soon as the sound of police-sirens filled the air. When the police-cars came into view the fire had stopped, just as the massacre and any movement. Except for one person. Richard Stoppable had stood in the middle of the street when had seen the fire coming towards him. At first he still had the power to look at the warehouse about 250 yards along the street. But then the memorys of Omaha came back.

---

Richard, a seventeen year old GI of the us army had landed as one of the first. The artillery-fire had destroyed the boat next to him. As the hatch opened hell unleashed, as the nazi-german mg42's shot into his boat. He was in the last row of men as the boat had left the harbour. Now he was one of the two still alive of former 30 men. His entire vision went sharp as nails as the tracer-rounds started to cut through the bodys of his friends. The first ones that were already taking steps forward simply fell down into the muddy water. The second row slumped as lifeless sacks to the sides or backwards. Blood flew into the air as one GI's head was simply cut into just as his helmet. Row number three was somewhat no longer there.

In these moments richard had aged years. Einstein was right, time is depending on the way your brain feels.

It was a sickening experience as all his friends were killed by metal that flew faster than any human could run away from it.

And the nightmare wasn't over with reliving his memorys. No he was convinced that not his comrades were running past him...


	15. Food experiments

Hiho folks I'm back again. This chapter came to me when I thought about the "tyranids" of a tabletop game named "Warhammer 40k". I do not own that stuff! But the creatures that will be mentioned in the following chapters are mine HAHAHAHAH! Well but to be serios they are inspired by the viciousness of these insectoid (does that word exist in english?) mean and fast killer-thingys. The bigger ones can even spit bio-plasma that puts shego to shame and can open tanks like small peanuts! However I call my creations : "Crawlers".

Grunningham got out of his police-car, behind him the two swat-van's came to a halt. He was awed by the look of the street.

The snow was mixed with blood everywhere, some spots were merely red puddles mixed with a greyish thing that was formerly known as snow. Everywhere lay corpses on the ground, somewhere in groups and sometimes alone. At a small thin passage between two parked cars and a closed liqourstore bodies already blocked every attempt to go through. The street was about of 250 meters long. At the place they entered the road very few single corpses littered the ground, struck down with the most ones missing their faces, foreheads or throats. Or all.

_Sniperrounds can do that..._

As he walked deeper into the long street the bodies became more and the ways they had diedvaried stronger. To his left a man was struck bya round straight in the chest two times.Three meters further lay an old woman. Her left leg was missing and her forehead slowly dispensed red-black liquid into the red snow. Beside her lay a small child, ceartainly 11 years old. A piece of its shoulder was missing.

_But that didn't come from a rifleround. That was some sort of animal bite. Maybe not from an animal but surely a bite.  
_

As he and his men trotted further into the street the corpses became more. A huge pile of maybe a dozen people cut in two halves by something powerefull lay still in the middle of the street. A small twitch came in one of the victims only ten foot before the police-chief. A loud tatatata came frome the warehouse and a couple of impacts erupted over the body and one foot around it. The twitching stopped as fast it had came. All the policemen including grunningham threw themselves into cover. But the yellow muzzle-flash had disappeared before anyone could have a closer look. _That shooter was watching us all the time. But why hasn't he shot us? _

The policemen proceeded further towards the warehouse, the darkness and lack of street-lamps masking them, the hidden sniper _and something else... I had this feeling of running into a trap all the time but that machinegunner isn't the reason for it. And that fog isn't making it better either. _

Fog was around them. It became thicker by any minute that passed. Grunningham's stomach trembled. It had been bad when he exited the car but now it became worse. "Everyone stay very close to me! Circular defensive formation!" His officers did as he ordered. Now his son (who shouldn't be around but his father thought it would be usefull to have his oppinion around) and he were in the middle of a circle. The swat-cops were always 6 feet away from each other and 12 feet away from the center. Every cop looked into his part of the circle. That was a good formation to prevent surprises. But with that fog around them everything could come 20 feet close without beeing seen. His stomach had a big knot now. He swallowed hard. "Keep going! Faster!", he ordered while getting out his radio and walking a fast jog.

He looked over his shoulder at the two vans and their guards. Two men each. Only the blue and red lights could be seen when they shone through the fog, everytime that the sirens turned into their direction. "Alpha come in, over."

Silence.

"I say again Alpha come in, over"

Again silence. _This can't be good. _"Run for the warehouse!"

"Sir thats were the-"

"RUN! Split up formation and RUN!"

His cops obeyed. With a ceartain unsecurity about thier cover and their sudden leaders misbehavior. But they obeyed.

"Dad what does-"

"No time son if im right were dead meat if we don't reach that warehouse."

"You mean-"

"Like level six of the game. _The level were you had to run from one thousand zombies. And 12 at a time are already too much.  
_

Hissons eyes widened as he began to run himself. A scream could be heard from behind. Grunningham turned around to see nothing were his six o'clock man should be. The five o'clock man turned his mp to the fog, ready to fire but got somewhat _sucked in _by the fog. _Or by something inside the fog _Grunningham ran faster, not letting go if his sons hand. 1 o' clock vanished into darkness too, as a second look proved. His panic rose, just as the adrenalin.

"Dad what is happening?" His son sounded frightened. _He has all reason to_

They had almost made it to the house that wasn't even there anymore. It was all fog now. Searchlights, attached to the barrels of the weapons everyone had didn't get far through the black fog. The men had finally broken the formation and ran, one faster, one another slower. He ran a bit faster that one of his men. As the man was on the chief's left side something hit him and he fell forward, not making any noise while doing that. The fallen one vanished into the fog behind them. Then a loud scream came. After that again utter silence.

Little was the orb that the fog left them to be in, it seemed that the black matter around them split up and closed itself very shortly after the biggest group of them. The biggest group was the one the chief and his son were in. They formed the middle. Before them were two sprinters who had always been the fastest in the police academy. The last group was formed by the heavy-weapon specialists and the not very fit ones. Of course one had to be very fit to become a swat member but, as always, there were differences in the running speed.

What worried the chief was that the last group dwarfed ever time he shot them a look. First they had been six, two shield having ones the sniper one with a grenade launcher and two shotgunners. After that they were one with a shield. One shotgunner less. Grenade-Ed as everyone called him went missing then. 12-gauge number one was MIA as next.Sweat formed on his forehead. The many years behind a desk made him have a bad shape. His son, not used to high body stress was getting slower too. _Soon I'll be the last one, then my son and then even the sprinters..._

Determination made him clutching his son's hand harder and his lungs ignore the burning feeling a bit. A bit.

_I won't let those bastards have my son. Maybe me but not him. _The searchlights kept running through the air, up and down among the sharp breathings of their holders. Everytime a light went up again, so it seemed to grunningham, a shape disappeared. Only to see very faintly and for splits of seconds, but it could be seen. Sometimes thin long bodies, or thin legs, never less than four, or, but those he saw only once each time, lights. Always in a triangle pattern, alway the same colour. Some were green, others blue and very few red. One time he shot at one of the triangle-lights, doing nothing. _I can't hit like this, and even if I do, a 9mm isn't the strongest weapon._

"Sir, the warehouse!" One of the sprinters screamedThe strange noises became louder. They had been there for the beginning of their run from the fog, but at that statement they became more. And they sounded angry. _Not just...hungry. _The image of a small ant-farm they had in his son's school came to his mind. The noises he heard that moment were somewhat...related to those during experiments. The experiments that stretched around the workers that hunted down other, bigger bugs. Never alone, always in well organized packs.

The wall of what could be the warehouse was in sight now. Round searchlights barely lit up the black brickstones. He touched the wall and looked around.

No door. None to feel, none in sight. _dammit shit we'll die dammit damn oh shit... think grunn think think... let em search!_

"Search for the door! (he turned his head and saw a small yellow light above headhight) No everyone follow me!" While running to the light the noises got louder. Angrier. And they sounded really hungry. He had been really amazed when his son's teacher _a hot lady _had shown him that ants had almost infinite hunger. Or at least their queen had. _Light means door. Door means alive. _His mind refused to think in complicated patterns. It was all or nothing in that moment. The door was now only more ten feet away. His wingman, a longgrown officer with a promising career in the future, got somewhat impaled by something thin and... chitinous. Whatever it was got through his chest and had hooks to not let him go again as he was pulled into the fog. A man behind him, the only left man with a tactical shield, turned around by coincedence just to have something bump into his shield with a loud clank. The clank that hard material made when it hit other hard materials. As grunningham put his flashlight towards the man and the bumpsound he could only see two thin things return into the fog. Things that didn't look human. Things that looked somewhat ant- or other insect-like. His other hand turned the doorknob. It didn't turn. He tried again but it didn't turn. Everyone around him (two swaties with mps his son and the shieldman) looked more and more frightened while taking a very close circular fomation around him. The fog's shriek-sounds got louder, now as loud as a policesiren. Very hungry indeed.

_Oh please god in heaven don't let it end like this _(he turned the doorknob again, it didn't open) _I have wife and kids please don't let this happen! _(The doorknob still did not open the door) _I would give everything to save my men... _(right after that thought the door opened inwards, revealing a dimly lighted room. A strong looking man stood in the open door and stepped beside, obvously to let them enter. He wore a blue carmechaniks suit and had a thick bottle in one hand.) _Oh thank you god _his stomach twisted even harder.

He entered the door and fell to the ground from the huge pain his sore stomach created. Lungs that were in flames? A heart that was shortly before collapsing? Legs that got heavy cramps? Everything not a problem. But his gut was. He clutched his belly and gritted his teeth to not scream from the pain. He turned upon his back to see the door. swattie one and two were in, the shieldman entered just as he looked.

_Somethings missing..._

Shieldman turned around, many loud bangs and thumps crashed against his protecting piece of kevlar-plastic mix. He began to stagger, but still held against the onslaut of attacks. A voice shouted: "Proctor close the door!" And the man in the blue mechanik-clothes shut the door so far that it build one line with the shield. After that the shielder slowly made a step behind so that the door could be closed entirely, with many bangs against it. 'Mech-boy' ,as grunningham called him in his mind, had to use all of his immense strength to shut the door but succeeded after a short but hefty power-match. A few bangs erupted on the door, not bending it, and stopped suddenly.

"Ah interesting, "the same voice spoke again, "So you made it through the 'black fog'? What did you see? Oh, by the way they call me 'chief'" Grunningham looked up to see the speaker: A rather nice-looking man with grey short hair extended his left hand to him. _I forgot something..._ and the man's warm eyes, face and smile reminded him of what he had forgotten:

His son.


	16. Hellish carrides, spiders and smokes

Back again folks. This time comes the call to arms. Oh and to actualize the disclaimer: I don't own kim possible, w40k, disturbed, die-hard-trilogy, all dirty-harry movies and max payne2. Also not mine is master of puppets by metallica.(the GODS of metal) I guess thats all. Oh and by the way reviews would be nice and once again I thank everyone who is reading so far.

Tara spoke: "I don't like this too bonnie but we should get us some weapons."

"Really?" The thought of holding one of these huge and loud guns made her shiver.

"Yes. You saw that these people won't just go away." "Okay but could we drop by at my mom's place first?"

"Okay why not?" Tara drove now and, even though she hadn't done that before, was good at it. After about half of the way three persons came out of a sideway and tara had to brake to not drive over one of them. The three persons could now clearly be seen infront of the stopped car. Number one stood infront of the left car's spotlight. It had a dark-green hoody and bluejeans. Small machinepistols were inside both hands and fired into the sideway. Number two was standing up after rolling over the car's engineblock. He knelt on the drivers side of the car. So that the head and a bit of the shoulders was in view. Only the eyes could be seen from the face since a brown cowboyhat blocked the forehead and a black piece of cotton was before the mouth, nose and jaw. Like this both girls thought he was a cowboy. As long as the darkskinned man closed his left eye, heaved the rifle to a halt upon the motorblock and pulled the trigger. KDAM made it every time a yellow lance left the front and entered something inside the sideway which was too dark to see. "Yo get in the car!" He shouted while releasing single shots. The girls looked intensly at the weapon. It looked rather sturdy and rawly made, and it went harshly into the man's shoulder everytime a yellow stream came out of it. Also the flashes that came when it shot were huge, yellow and lightened the entire motorblock and frontseats, including its two passengers. Figure number one ran straight for the car and opened the right passengerdoor. The other man remained behind the car's front and kept firing into the alleyway only two meters away from the cars left side and one meter infront of it. It was too dark to see anything inside the alley. Number one sat in the car and screamed towards the sideway: "Move it dog! No time left!" Number two shot again, a figure fell to the ground, now inside the brightened snowcovered white street, and another shot broke, this time from the mp's of number one who leaned out of the open window. Before number 1's second shots came another shot from number two rang through the air, and together they entered something huge and black above the fallen person who turned around and shot two small and not long sawd-offs into the shape above him. The things strange tentacels, legs or whatever slumped back into the sideway after showing a weird spider-like head with dark-red eyes radiating an unsettling glow of a merciless intelligence, hatred and hunger.

Number two stood up and ran to the left passengers door, which wasn't far, nr 3 got up and ran three steps to nr1's mps , turned around shot the other two rounds of his sawed-off 12-gauges and opened the door.Number one backed away to the exactly opposite of the car. The two shotguns produced a rather loud an primitive BLAUM as the left shoulder was turned behind and after that the right. Nr2 shot a short burst of bullets into the sideway after supporting his aim by resting his rifle upon the car while standing inside the open door, ready to get in, and the red eyes, not seen earlier by the girls but now magically drawing their attention (and eyes) upon themselves, jumped to one side in the darkness. Bot felt like someone would mock them.

_cou cannot hurt me come to me_

Bonnie shook her head. Had she heard a voice in her head? She looked at the eyes and wondered how many they were.

_come and see them_

"Tara-"

"I hear it too.-"

_you hear nothing and feel safe_

The girls bodys relaxed while looking into the red very close standing orbs. Bonnie shivered very strong but couldn't shake off the feeling that something was out there. She didn't like these eyes. Number three opened the door and-

_the others are a danger for me  
_

An immense feeling of dislike erupted inside her and she almost-

_stay_

hit the pedal to accelerate and the brake which would have made the engine stop. And it would have cost them many seconds to restart it.

"Drive!" Tara was somewhat focused on the eyes of ...whatever it was.

_no you won't...drive_ bonnie could feel, sense or merely hear that the voice (or maybe the eyes?) didn't know what driving meant, but knew that it was something bad.

Her feet released the pedal and relaxed like as if in sleep.

Number one got into the car by somewhat crawling over 2's lap and 3 shouted: "The music! Turn the-"

_NO _nr2 touched a thing at his hip_ NO _a beep came _NOOOO_ and loud guitar-music played.

_NOOOoooo... _As soon as the music played the voice became...weaker. But one thing still could be heard even through the music:

_FOOD HUNGER_

"Hit the pedal dawg!" Bonnie still looked into the red eyes but her body acted for her mind. The car accelerated. Her head slowly became clearer and the fog in her mind started to leave. She could her own thoughts again. And her mind was racing.

_Am I alright? What was that? And how-_

Something caught her eye in the small side-mirror. Something huge, black and-RED.

"Holy shit man he's comin' again!" Number one spoke, while the music got louder.

"OBEY YOUR MASTER! MASTER!" Again guitar and drum hammering. Bonnie couldn't trust her eyes.

"Oh god it's a spider!" Tara was nervous. "It'll come for us!"

Saw, as his friends called him, put the music of his own mp3 player louder. Normally there would be hip-hop in it but that dude from the fire-department had said that those spiders would be nervous to loud sounds. Of course, he had "acquired" just the cd after a heavy brawl with some of those biker-biatches from upperton. The cd had a small fineliner-writing on it that said: "Best of metallica". He, as the normal gangsta, had never heard from those dudes. But the cd had been his goal to victory at a bass-meeting when OD (the mofo) said to have the biggest sound. But, of course saw had the better sound (not really but hey, it was his homies listening). Because the songs of those dudes had so much bass no one noticed that he had the weaker sound and he won. _Man I was the PLAYA that day!_

The thing got closer. One could think that a car that sped up to 40 mph would be fast enough to outrun anything. Anything else than 6 feet long killer-spiders. OD, the one with the rifle and the cowboyhat sat in the middle. He turned on the seat to shoot the hell out of it but as he looked behind the car there was no more spider-thingy. He frowned. "What the hell-"

THUMMMMM The entire car was pushed closer to the ground as a black leg entered through the roof, empaling poor saw at the shoulder and heaving him up. OD turned - "Master of puppets I'm pulling your strains" - and fired through the roof - "twisting your mind" - almost the entire roof was hacked out of the car as another, bigger and more hairy leg came through between the frontseats, spread out its hairs while pulling up again, taking the entire roof with it. It revealed sight on a huge black spider-like thing. Its one frontleg was hacked into saw, the other (the right one) held the now stashed out roof like a knight would hold an oversized shield. Gordon, the mp-guru sprayed at it with his both mac-10's, not caring about that a few bullets wouldn't hit, since the thing was on pointblanc range and his friend in danger. OD turned and cursed inwardly over the mild pain his hip gave him when he turned at an unhealthy angle. The thing pulled his best friend up through the hole and Gordons spraying didn't harm the thing much. Every bullet produced nothing more than a small hole that leaked a thick green liquid.

- "and smashing your dreams" -

OD used his rifle to shoot at the thing in an insane manner. The recoil, the loudness, the gun-powder in his eyes didn't matter. He wanted to take down that thing with themselves at least. The car sped on to a very high speed and barely made a curve. Bonnie cursed. She had hoped to throw that thing off. But it didn't work. It clawed into the vehicle with the other four legs and moved itself above the midsection. In the moment it had attacked Saw it was almost upright standing on the end of the car, mangling its frame. It bent down to put its head inside the car. To eat, of course. Ignoring the hail of bullets it received from the rifle and the two mps the looming shadow bent down.

----

John stood outside on the stairs of middleton library and enjoyed his cigarette. 5 minutes of not having to look at old books and the monitor. Eveything was quiet and calm. So he inhaled another stroke of air from the tabak-straw. Then that car raced by, with a huge spider on it and shooting and loud guitar-music and someone shouting about a master-master. He blinked twice, looked at the cigarette for some time and took another deep breath. Then he threw it away and said while breathing out: "Marge is right. I'll quit."

----

It slowly came closer and the liquid from its various mouthtools dropped on his body in small portions, forming puddles, a burning feeling and small clouds steam that stunk after human flesh when it ran down the wound that went through his entire body. Saw shot his freshly reloaded sawed-offs into its mouth, dropped the ammo attached to his belt, the guns in his hands and thought: _Oh shit_ before disappearing in the things mouth. His guns had not showed any effect to the heavily armoured bones.

Bonnie turned around and looked behind her. Spider-thingy put its head upwards in an angle that allowed view on its mouthtools which violently pressed the whole man deeper into the entire thing. At the heads front were two three-dozen centimeters long jaw-bone like things with many sharp small teeth at the upper(and inner)side. Behind that four small sickle-shaped blades cut deeply into saw's legs, making sure that whatever entered the "mouth" would not be able to leave anymore and assisting the movement further. After its meal the head came down and revieled its true shape. A very small and rather thick neck connected the middle torso and lead to the middle of the head, making it almost looking like mushroom. What lay on top of the connection was a sharp triangle, not a circle, about 3/4 of a meter long at the highest point and from then on running down in a triangle-manner to the point that formed a jaw-mouth thing with the mouth-tools beginning from the connection and ending with the two huge jaws at the heads end. The four smaller ones and a few even smaller were hidden behind them. The thing returned the look.

Its huge red eyes, flat and about as big as the circle a small 0,5 liter bottle mineralwater has when one watches it from exactly above, had an odd shape. It looked like someone would have pressed a bit on their middle to sink them in a bit, making them look like a mooncrater. Two of them were placed middly, above were three eyes, showing a formation similar to bowlingpins and underneath the two eyes were another two. But those remote ones were below in a 45 degrees angle, beeing the almost at the edges of the sharp triangle. Every level of eyes was connected with the closest other level of eyes by thin, weakly deepgreen glowing straws. Remote eyes were connected with the 2 other ones but not with the three on top, just as those only had a link to the middle two ones. And those eyes were looking into bonnies.

She felt a cold hand grabbing into her head, something cold, shifty and uncomfortable coming inside her. Filling, searching and corrupting her mind. There had always been enough space in her head for her. Her alone. Always there had been smaller or bigger holes, caves, dark corners or simply free spaces her mind could easily stretch or expand to when she wanted. And when she had to. Everytime she had a headache she felt like her mind would dwell up like a wet sponge inside a glass-cage. But she never gave the spong too much water, except when she was very angry, sad or otherwise highly stressed. Everytime that had happened the "sponge" pressed a bit, just a bit, against the "glasscage" that shielded her mind. But now was different. Her sponge expanded violently.

There was a different sponge inside her mind. And it brought much water with it.

Sponge numero secundo was not big, rather small, but the water sucked itself into hers. Quickly. Headache was no longer a word to describe what spread out in her mind at that moment. It was a plague, infecting, destroying, infesting and taking over her mind. Her nerves didn't notice anymore that her jaw was slowly dropping, that she slowly lost the struggle about her self-control.

Tara was puzzled. Everything hadn't token longer than 6 seconds from their stop to driving at 100 mph with the driver looking at "spidey" with her jaw almost dropping to the ground. The loud shootings, the smell of gunpowder and all the new views... _Am I ready for guns? I think so... If anyone explains me how to use one of those I can handle them. I guess. What about bonnie? She looks weird. I hope these guys can handle that thing. A quick curve could throw it off. _"Bonnie drive a curve! Now Or we'll crash!"

No response, still the dull look. _Oh great she's hypnotised. I've got to steer the car. Oh crap- _She leaned forward for as much as her safetybelt allowed her to and stretched her arms to the steering wheel. She gripped it and turned them just in time. The car narrowly avoided a brickwall and the thing upon their car screamed loudly. _I bet two of its legs have been squished between the wall and the car. Ha! The stupid bastard deserves it. Oh no not another curve!_

But there was another curve. She made the car drift to the left and the wheels that side started to lose ground contact. The car started to take a dangerous angle and a crash with several over-rolings was the last thing they had a use for in that moment. Especially with the roof and with that a part of the car-frame missing. Another wall was dangerously close and she heard the sparks fly as the upper part of her door made contact with a metallic shop-wall. She struggled to keep herself from collapsing into the door and losing control. And succeeded barely. Her eyes widened when she saw the huge steel lantern infront of them. It was to close and she couldn't get the car back to the street in time. _Okay okay I've got to try something risky_. Everyone in the car except bonnie and tara had no seatbelts and hence blopped around. OD fell forward and his head made contact with the (thankfully) empty place between the two frontseats and didn't move anymore. The other man lost one of his two mpi's and cursed while reloading his left empty one. "Spidey" however had problems too. Two of its legs on one side had been smashed and were thin straws that leaked a lot of green liquid. It regained its balance and tried to get the head back up to look at its food when the entire car started to turn back to the street, the entire right side of the car was on the street instead of the wheels and it slid, spraying sparks while moving over a sealed sure-entrance towards a huge traffic-light. "Spidey" looked at the lantern and realised that it was between the rolling thing his prey called a "cour" and something huge made from the same material. The strong material.

_No food?_

PLANK Everyone inside the car screamed and covered their head (except poor OD). With one huge rack of force the spider's body was somewhat pressed inside the car and got sliced by the sharp edges of the hole it had made before. Its green bloodreplacing fluid slid down the metalframe and covered everyone, which made two of them mourn in disgust. Lowpitched and almost like a whisper was the huge things sound as it moved its two remaining legs into the cars side and pressed its body out of it. And with the same action the car got thrust back from its side to its wheels. It shook everyone heavily and tara feared it would fall over to the other side before it finally came to a halt. But unfortunately for the thing this had cut some of its vital organs out among a big part of its bodyfluid. That was a good thing for the cars crew, but had its side effects.

"Ewwwww!" Tara looked at the green slime that covered her entire body. "Did it really have to make such a mess?"

"NO! MY NEW CLOTHES!" Bonnie had appearently overcome her mental blockade because of the only thing that could really unsettle her: "This bitch ruined my best clothes!" She moved her ends and tried to get some of the slime and a footballsized thing that somewhat vibrated off her naked lower leg. "Ewww get OFF!" She threw the entire dudel-sack like thing out of the shattered window.

"Urrr at least is that thing off now." Derrick spoke after moving a hand through his hand and groaning. "And-"

"Who are you anyway?" Bonnie sounded pissed.

"Bonnie remember what I said about strangers!"

"Ummm oh yeah errm sorry." Bonnie seemed not to know what to do and got out of the car leaving the door open.

"Miss we should check on the thing outside."

"You mean bonnie? Oh she's fi-"

"Sorry, I mean the spiderthing."

"Oh yeah." Both got out, ignoring poor OD who still lay unconscious and covered with green slime in the car.

Bonnie stood there not sure what to do or think and crossed her arms before the thing.

"Yeah it worked!" Derrick and bonnie looked at her confused, she answered sheepishly: "Oh I mean my plan with the lantern and all! See its dead!"

But right on that statement one of the crushed legs twitched. "AAAAAAAH!" Bonnie screamed, jumped back, stole derrick his mac10 and sprayed the entire clip into the thing onehanded while looking away and shielding her face with the other hand. "Die die die now die will you!" Brething heavilly and (finally) looking at the thing she saw that she hadn't hit it even once. All the bullet-holes were somewhere around that thing and randomly "decorated" the street and a nearby wall. Now it was Tara and Derrick wo looked confused.

"No disrespect miss but aiming would help." Derrick spoke while holding three small stripes of ammunition towards her. "Take it and reload while I'll look after OD"

"Od?" Bonnie asked in her typical 'I-am-an-arrogant-teenie-queen-and-you-are-a-freak' tone while taking the ammunition.

"Yes he thought orelsson dorstran would not sound cool so he called himself OD."

Just as Bonnie was about to say something to the man who was bowing into the car Tara shot her an icy look, so she stopped. A voice came out of the car: "Yo man you know what we look like?" (he got out of the car) "Like the ghostbusters when they got slimed by that slimer!" Everyone shot him icy looks, even Derrick who was known for never doing that. He looked at the three with a questioning face. "What? You know I bet this slime steams away in a few moments like in that horror-game!"

"Anyway where have you got these guns from?" Tara asked.

"Yo living in the gett-o!" Od said, trying to make a cool rap but failing at it entirely. Derrick jumped in."We live in a getto in the suburbs near upperton when someone told us about an "attack". First we thought it was an enemy gang's attack but we met that instead." He pointed towards the still spider-bug combination. "I guess it is a secret goverment project that escaped or something."

"Yo we need new clothes dudes."

"I agree with my friend. And we must leave fast if we don't want to get arrested."

Bonnie chimed in: "Yeah I can't walk around like that! And it's freezing!"

Tara just sighed. "Hello! Guns?"

Bonnie answered: "Girl are you blind? We got enough! Screw guns we need-"

"Ughhhh FINE just get in the car and shut up!" Bonnie looked at her quizically. Everyone got in, but derrick took the drivers seat while tara remained on the left front-seat. Bonnie caught OD looking at her legs. "What are you looking at freak I-"

"BONNIE!" Tara was unnerved. _She STILL doesn't get it._

Silence filled the car that stood where it was without having moved. Derrick carefully asked: "The monthly visitor?"

"No she's always like that. Please drive to terrington hill 43."

Derrick just thought one thing:_ Oh great just my luck._

And so they sped towards bonnies house, leaving el arach, master of the spiders, dead behind them.

Bonnie thought: _The car is scrap, I've got two strangers with guns coming among, everyone looks green, the house is all screwed up and I've had a party and mom found out. Dad is SO gonna kill me._


	17. Family reunion!

Yay folks I'm back with good news: I've got at least one week of free time to write! (Everyone shouts hooray) Anyway here is my plan: Two different plotlines, the one of the runner (or gunner) max who is ordered (by henry) to find and bring back bonnie, and the other of chief, Ron Drakken and the rest of the crew who try to find reinforcements (and belief from the public) and to prevent the undead from entering Middleton. And what is Kim's role in the plot? Will there be any? And what for pairings will come out? ( I've got some surprising ones in my mind) Hoever please review and write me mail or whatever. And thanks to Dresari371 for adding my tale to hers or his fav list. And once again thanks to all those who lend me their time by reading this stuff. And remember: Don't drink and drive!

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"I've got to find Kim!" Ron told the chief. "I must find her!"

"Do you at least have a car?" He responded, his voice showing that he didn't want to let Ronald go.

"And I have to find my wife and kids." Henry Rockwaller, one of the best men of chief's group chimed in: "And I can take the kid among with my car."

The grey-haired man stood there, deep in thoughts. _I can't let my best man go… and what about the young one? He won't survive 10 minutes out there. But if Henry says he'll take care of him…._

"Ok Rockwaller, but you must promise me that you a: (he started to count on his fingers) watch on the kid, b: get your family and yourself out of town and c: contact the army. I trust that someone of your importance has just the contacts for that.

Henry nodded.

"You are bonnie's father? I haven't seen you around."

Henry nodded again, this time slower: "Wealth has consequences. And a price I thought I could pay. But that was wrong. I would throw away every dollar for only one more minute with my family."

"Oh." Ron replied.

Chief spoke up again: "We will rob the local gunstores and try to get the police on our side. Maybe we'll even make it to found a peoples milita. If you seek us, call me on my cell-phone. Here is the number." He gave Henry a small paper. "And here is a copy of the disc."

Henry took the small cd-hull and pocketed it somewhere in his combatdress.

"Come on kiddo my car is on the backside. The fog's gone by now."

"How do you know that? All the windows are closed!" Ron was confused.

"Insinct, sixth sense, telepathy call it what you want. Anyway kiddo-" He pointed towards the back-door.

"Oh yeah let's go find kim!"

They got outside and entered a silver four-seated sportscar. Henry sped it up and drove towards his home.

"Where do you live kid?"

"Umm it's not far from where you live. Just a few blocks away."

"Okay kiddo."

"Stop calling me that my name is Ron!"

"Sure Ron."

"Boo-ya!" Henry raised an eyebrow at that.

"Now I remember you've been Bonnies only friend in pre-k!"

"Ummm yeah but she seems to have forgotten about that."

They drove through the darkness for a few more minutes until they saw a small shape at one of the streets sidewalks.

"Hey who is that?" Ron asked.

"Probably an infected." Henry sped up and aimed the vehicle towards the person. He was a bit surprised when the figure went from the walkway upon the street and waved its arms.

He felt miserable. After walking for what seemed to be much longer than 15 minutes he finally found a car. His clothes were all soaked to the bone and he was about to freeze to death. All his muscles were in cramps and his body was dull, empty and numb. And the biggest problem: The person he had expected to come for him hadn't come. His eyes almost shut and his head turned away from the light. Light would save him. Even if these people knew about what he had done they wouldn't reject a man in his position. The vehicle stopped ten feet before him, but he was still out of the angle of the bright carlights.

"Strange seems to be a normal one. Keep your weapon ready. Ron swallowed at the thought of maybe meeting his first Undead. In reality and not in the game. And at the thought of maybe having to shoot his weapon at someone. The figure came to the left sidedoor and opened it. Henry watched every move with critical eyes. 'Shape' was inside the car and shook violently.

"Pretty cold huh?" Ron froze when he saw Henry drawing a pistol while asking that.

"Uh yeah err could you drive me to the ummm hospital?"

Ron recognised the voice and turned around only to meet the eyes of 'shape'.

"Drakken?"

"Ermmmm (he snipped his finger twice) BUFFOON!"

Ron didn't notice that he held the rifle towards the blue man.

"Ahh don't shoot! I'm not evil now I just ermmmm (he touched his chin) had a car-accident and fell into a river!"

"Oh yeah sure where's Shego!" His eyes narrowed and his hands lit up from monkey-kung-fu coming alive.

The blue man's face went to confused mode and he said: "Good question. She's not with me. But she should be. I should shorten her pay-sheque for this month!"

Now it was Ron's turn to look confused. _Drakken without Shego? That's like… like… thanksgiving without a turkey! _

"Kids please! We are all sitting in one boat now!" Henry sensed the hostility and intervened. Ron's glowing hands were more and more unsettling. "We all have a common enemy so let's fight them and not ourselves!"

"I won't work with villains!"

_Villains? What is he talking about? _"Ron your sense for justice in high regard but think about it: We can smash our heads and be overrun or work together and maybe survive!"

"What do you mean with maybe survive?" Drakken asked while bending forward a bit.

"Hmmm difficult matter. For now the fact that this town will be under siege by insane maneaters coming from the overrun upperton is enough to know.

"Maneaters?" Drakken sounded frightened.

"Yep and they will slaughter this town if we can't get every man, kid and wife build trenches and hold guns. And if we fail to solve this problem here or at least keep it in middleton the whole US is meat. Literally! And after that the entire world."

"No way! I tried to take over the world hundreds of times and failed so a few lunatics won't make that!"

"You and Shego are only two lunatics, Drakken!" Ron's voice was filled with venom that seemed to fuel his hands and made his eyes shimmer a bit.

Henry had it. The one was a child and the other behaved like one. He hit the brakes really hard and yelled the shit outta'em: "SHUT THE FUCK UP BITCHES! IM SICK OF YOUR CHILDPLAY! (his voice lowered to a very angry talk-voice) now sit down and listen to the pro! We are ALL GONNA DIE if us humans can't shove our moronic behavior aside! If all of these assfucking undead would be as dumb as you are there wouldn't be ANY problem! They are dumb as shit but even THEY can organize and work as one force. And I'm not gonna get mankind butchered because of some kids having a bitchfight."

Bitter silence fell upon the car until he spoke again. "Now that I've got you listening: Ron if you fail to use your shotgun even once you'll hand it over to Drakken. And you will (he handed Drakken his pistol over the seat with his left hand while expertly driving the vehicle with his right) use this until we can get something better for you."

"Urmmm" he looked at the gun confusion, took it and looked into the barrel first.

"NEVER look into the barrel except you wanna get shot moron!"

Drakken quickly placed the pistol on his knee and shivered.

"You'll get some of my clothes when we're at my place. After that we will drive to Ron's house and get his parents to leave the town. End of discussion."

No one dared to say anything against that as they made their way to the rockwaller estate.

After 24 minutes of highspeed driving (which included ignoring red lights but hey, with no one else on the street?) they drove on the garage's driveway and exited the car. Henry noticed that the car of his wife was missing. And there was a manshaped white marking on the entryway. The sort of marking that is left behind on a murdering-scene. And the entrydoor was blocked by two lines of "police-do not cross" ribbons. Well, at least what was left of the door. He ripped them off, entered the house and after that the living room. His wife was sitting on the couch and spoke without looking up: "I already said that I came home after this go find-"

"Honey? Its me!" He threw his rifle into Drakken's hands (who almost dorpped the deadly device with his clumsyness) while his wife got up and looked at him. After that he hugged her deeply.

"So you are dropping by for a moment too?" Her voice was filled with sarcasm.

"Darling look, ermmm (he sighed) could you please get the kids down here while I get some clothes for my friend here?" He pointed towards the blue man who stupidly hid the rifle behind his back and smiled. "He needs-"

"Guns, honey?" She countered with enough venom to kill a leopard.

"I will explain and I have acknowledged my mistake of spending too much time with my work." His head slumped down while saying that.

"Hmmm maybe. You DO still know where your room is? And maybe you should change clothes too." He looked at and mentally slapped himself for his foolishness. "Maybe Helen, see the whole thing got out of control and everyone died and they escaped to town and-"

"Henry don't bother me with details of your work when you're telling me-"

While gripping her shoulders he almost shouted at her:

"Helen this is serious! I saw people die from my creations! And they're coming to this town!"

Drakken, not aware of disturbing a touchy moment asked a question: "What comes to town? What could be so important and dangerous to make me work with HIM?" He pointed to ron, who in return pointed to Drakken and spoke up: "Yeah what he said!" Rufus came out of his pocket and pointed at the blue "evil" man too while making an angry face. "Hah Two to one Drakken! You're outnumbered!" Ron said victorious as he bent forward. "Urrrrr- (Drakken's arms shivered angrily and he raised one arm into the air, making his hand a fist) you are weak buffoon to need a second ally!"

"Stop calling me buffoon!"

"You stop following a cheerleader!"

"You stop ummmmm-(ron puts a hand to his chin, deep in thoughts) hiding behind shego AND henchmen!"

"ARRR ENOUGH fight you imbecile creature!" Drakken readied himself to launch at Ron. But Henry obviusly had a different idea. He took the rifle that Drakken had put on a small table and raised it towards the both idiots.

"Shut up now or I'll make you!"

Both looked at him in perfect unison, lower to the gun, at him again, the gun, him. Drakken raised a finger. "Umm you don't plan to use this thing do you?"

"Oh I did plenty of times before so stop giving me a good reason to use it on you!"

Both fell quiet, returned to normal stances and looked at each other like two schoolsboys that had been shouted at by the teacher. "Truce?" Drakken offered. "Fine." Ron accepted while narrowing his eyes. Also his voice showed displeasure.

"So gentlemen," Helen, Henry's ex-wife spoke up after crossing her arms before her chest. "If the idiotic 'manhoodly' authority-problems are solved now would one of you please give me the 'pleasure' of letting me know what is going on?" One who thought that bonnie or shego were the best in sarcasm was wronged by this woman.

"Okay honey it-"

"Umm I'm cold here could I have-"

"DRAKKEN shut the fuck up and NEVER interrupt me again!" Even Helen was shocked at a such outbreak. _Henry always was peacefull, that's why I married him in the first place.He never got angry except when something really crappy happened. Or when he screwed up big time. Or both._ Drakken immediately fell quiet and lowered his head, making a frown. Ron bit his lower lip.

"Dad?" A sleepy feminine voice came from upstairs. Ron looked up and saw a very beatiful girl clothed in a thin pink satingown. He looked at the face first, just like the gentleman he was, showing a sleepy face and one fist rubbing an eye sleepily. But then his eyes wandered downwards and revieled two wellformed and only halfly by pink satin clothed breasts, a fine and marvelous tigh, long hilarious legs. And that was not all. His eyes also hefted on the small satin-panty she wore that playfully put her most private parts to attention. The entire clothing was one piece, and except the very touchy places everything was so thin that one could look through. And the satin even created a small skirt that made her upperlegs seem even more desirable at each and every of the five steps she took down the stairs.

He turned his head away, blushing obviously._ Fool I shouldn't hav elooked at all! _ Drakken gave a mean smile that could easily be mistoken for a dirty one: "Hey daddy ain't gonna like you watching at his baby-girl!"

Ron's head only slumped deeper while almost turning tomato-red. Henry made a confused frown and moved to a better viewpoint, looked up the stairs and smiled. "Lonny how nice to see you! (he thought for a moment while lowereing his head and heaving a look into far realms) Please get some clothing we're leaving the house and could you please wake Conny?"

"Okay Dad. Nice to have you back." She turned around and proceeded to somewhere on the upper floor, leaving a totaly stunned Ronal Stoppable behind. Henry spotted Ron beeing red, knew that his daughter had just a dessous-like satin gown on and -well- put one and one together. Ron looked up confusedly and still red in the face as he felt a hand clapping his shoulder twice. "I've been young too, Ron."

A few minutes later Lonnie, clothed in a dark-red blazer and same-colored tight leather-pants, her sister Connie, wearing a nice-looking white jeans-jacket and blue-jeans, Drakken clad in one of Henrys blue baggy-jeans, his own white-blue button-shirt and his quick-dried labcoat above the shirt sat around the eating table. As Mrs and former Mr. Rockwaller entered the room Drakken stood up to give Helen a seat which she took without any note of a thank-you.

Henry was leaning against the fridge, everyone looked at him, except for Connie who raised a brow, pointed at Drakken and said: "Mister you shouldn't carry that gun there." Drakken, caught by surprise, bent down with his head and neck to look at his belly. "What's wrong with my gun?" He asked in a confused voice. Everyone giggled except him, since he hadn't realised that he had made a lame joke by accident. After that Lonnie spoke up: "Its pointing towards your crotch. Wouldn't be good if it shot by accident." Ron, beeing quiet and staying in the opposite to Drakken and Henry caught himself looking at Lonnie all the time. And he always shook his head to get it clear again. _How nice that jacket looks on her. And how nice she looked on the stairs.._(the picture of lonnie in the pink gown formed in his mind) _No don't think that- something else something else-…Yes that's better! _(In the first moment only the gown had made the picture and now it became filled with skin and a body) _strange…… Lonnie had been bigger earlier- Oh no its kim! _(slowly Kim's body took place inside the gown, looking even more beatifull than otherwise. She smiled.) _Oh god no that's wrong too! Arghhhh. _(He gripped his head but luckily no one saw that since everyone was engulfed in Henry's story.) _Aurggggh everything looks nice on her _– "Yes, Helen I was the assistant"- _I've got to stop this. _(In his mind Lonnie and Kim fought for dominance in the picture, sometimes was the hip a bit bigger than smaller, and the breasts looked either mature and seductively well-shaped or a bit teenager-like, resembling the way he _thought _Kim's breasts would look like) –"No I didn't know that I was working for the"- _Arrrrgh Rufus help me! _

Like as if the small pet would have heard his best friends thoughts it came out of the pocket in lightning-speed and , weakly but still painfull, bit him in the nose. "Good boy you deserved yourself a full naco!" He gace his small pet a high-five and it disappeared into its pocket. "Any questions, Ron?" Henrys voice came very surprising to all of them.

"Err what? Ummm no."

Ron saw everyone looking at him, including Lonnie. He felt a bit strange and his knees started to shiver lightly. But thankfully the baggieness of his pants could mask that and something else his day-dreams had created. He looked into the faces and saw surprisement. His eyes met the ones of Lonnie but he pretended to look into her eyes by coincedence and barely made it to not look into them for too long. _How beatifull and red they are. _–" Yes they DO walk even though they shouldn't " - Her eyes, in Ron's oppinion, were the most intense red he ever saw. But they were matt, which means that they didn't shine or were bright or reflected light much. _Oh what intensity… _That girl had done something to him, he knew that. And her eyes also showen curiousity, and ,maybe, even a mild interest. Adding to his high oppinion of Lonnie Rockwaller was that she didn't look him over shortly and then just dismissed him as 'not interesting'. She didn't. Neither did she look and then just turn away like he wouldn't be worth a second consideration. She also didn't pretend to be not interested only to not be mocked by her other female friends. She looked at him, analyzed him, and her eyes were warm. Ron didn't know any other way to desribe it, just warm. And warm meant nice, and not mean or just 'not interested' like all the others. Not even Zeta's eyes had been warm.

"Okaaaaay then, we will do this the following- wait! (Henrys eyes narrowed) Where is Bonnie?"

No answer came.

"Oh dammit! FUCK! FUCK! WHY CAN'T JUST FOR ONE TIME EVERYTHING BE IN PLACE! URRRH!" With this he ran out of the kitchen and stormed up the stairs. Ron and Drakken followed him without thinking and at the same time, a yet unknown but somehow….familiar …feeling or instinct pushing them. The others followed after a brief pause.

Ron could see Henry standing in front of a huge console, it seemed to have grown out of a desk he was standing behind, his back to the door. "Mr Rockwaller what is it?" He asked carefully since he knew that Henry was pissed.

The answer came among a myriad of typing sounds. "I'm searching for my daughter. If I can find the car… I hope she is alright… Please god this one time….." However, Henry didn't look up from the console while speaking, seeming very focused on his task. A loud beep came and everyone saw that a huge city-map appeared on the wall, beeing projected by the really futuristic looking console. It had several red spots that were appearently houses, a few streets were especially marked out just as another few buildings in different colors. Ron froze as a hand slid on his shoulder, gently pushing himself aside. He saw, from the farest angle of his eye, that the hand belonged to Lonnie. He froze even more. _Oh god she is touching me! Hoooow what to do what to do uuuuuu don't panic just don't panic…_Her hand tensed a bit and the full square of it and not just a bit from the fingers rested on his shoulder, gently pushing him a bit more to the left. _UUUUUURK what to do oh heaven this is too much! _He somewhat wanted her to keep the hand there, but also wanted her to remove it. He felt beeing ripped intwo. "Could you please make a bit space for me?" The voice was gentle and asking, not rough and rejecting like he expected it to be. _Oh god she talks to me………_

PLUNK.The safety-charge of his brain jumped out and let it take a ride to the happy place.

"Oh err yeah sure." It sounded less stammered then he had expected it to sound.

She replied with a gently spoken thank-you and a smile that felt like it could melt mountains. Also did she release her hand. A part of him thanked for that, another almost screamed from disappointment. "Hmmmm I guess I can- AHH YES!" Henry thrust down his right elbow and almost hit the console.

"What is it?" His ex-wife asked.

"I found the car! It is… wait… " He typed a few more orders and a picture came into one of the former black corners beside the map. "There!" A part of the map vanished as it zoomed in, showing that it was upon (who would have guessed?) on a street. And it (get ready) was driving. The picture needed a moment to establish so everyone had looked on the map, but now it was clean.

Green.

"Whow looks like slimer from the ghostbusters!" Ron exclaimed while pointing at the screen with one arm and finger. Everyone gave him dead-panning looks, except for Henry who kept typing orders and- _She is giggling? _Ron was embarrased and blushed a little. _Oh great I fully hit the bucket and that infront of Lonnie!" _He didn't understand why that bugged him and frowned. However a small strike came to his right upperarm and ihe nstinctively gripped it with the left hand. "That was good!" He was surprised to see that it was Lonnies fist that had hit him playfully. And even more surprised to hear her voice giving him a compliment. _She liked that one?_ And he gripped his arm fully, moved his hand up and down the old wound she had touched (which hurt a bit) and made a small 'Au' sound. She looked at him surprised.

"Don't tell me that hurt!" Her voice sounded amused.

"Yes it did! You can't just randomly hit people!" That created a magical smile on her face.

"You're funny!"

"No I'm serious that's an old wound you punched! That does hurt!" He felt a bit misunderstood, and he hated that. People tended to think of him as a wuss when they misunderstood him. And he was no wuss. _I might fear much on this planet but I have a reason for that! I was in Wanna-weep! AND I DON'T SCREAM EVERYTIME I SEE A SQUIRREL IN THE PARK LIKE JOSH-OH-SO-CUTE_-_MANKEY! _

How much he hated that man was beyond measure. Arrogant, sportive, popular and rich. But Kim had a crush on that moron so he kept his own feelings behind. Like he always did. For Kim. Most important was that SHE was happy. Even it hurt often. Especially when he had been locked up in the janitor's storage room since she rather wanted to dacne with that prick. _She forgot me that day! And she will forget me again! What if that assfucker suddenly thinks it would be fun to pretend to have feelings for her? Only to hurt me! But he quickly 'forgot' that I was his only friend back in Wanna-weep and before and after! And Bonnie's! No one remembers me! No one cares about my feelings and my wants and my needs! No one says: "Oh thanks ron for stowing away your own wishes so I can be happy!" I just want to be seen. And heard. And that someone SHOWS me that he/she appreciates my sacrifices!_

"Really? Sorry I didn't know that!" Ron was really surprised. He thought he had reached the top of beeing surprised but appearently someone still could take a bunny out of the hat. _She cares about that she hurt me? Wow. No girl ever cares if she hurts me. Not even Kim. Oh Kim does care at least a small bit. About physical injuries. But not about my wounds. I told her that they came from missions but they come from Mankey and his friends. And she keeps running after stupid crushes when she has me. And every time she comes back crying and wants me to hold her. But she doesn't care about if I want to be held or if I have my problems. _Ron was not egoistic and he was in very good knowledge about his skills and even more about his flaws. But he knew he was the best thing that happened to Kim. And reverse. _Wait! Am I jealous over her? _His thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"What is that?" Connie asked.

"Duh, the tv! Whow cool Police-chases! I love police-chases!" Drakken sounded over-joyed.

It took Ron very much of his attention to focus on the tv and not on Lonnie. He struggled through the group to get a better view (and to get away from Lonnie since he needed to get his head clear again) and heard the narrator, a raw male voice, speak:

"…the suspect is armed and very dangerous. Citizens who see this person are advised to call the police immediately. Do NOT make any attempt to catch or even contact the person by yourself. The criminal is beeing sought for the following charges: Murder of Josh Mankey and multiple yet unknown victims, grand theft of multipal vehicles, illegal own- and useage of firearms as well of knife-weapons, resistance against government agents and policemen, including attacking multipal policeman with lethal force. I say again: The suspect is heavily armed and very dangerous (he only had to pass Drakken anymore, who still blocked view) It is advised to stay away from the person AT ALL COST. Any policemen who see this person are ordered to shoot on sight-"

He saw it: The picture showed a young man wearing glasses, a cold look, a weak-stoppel-beard, brown-blond hair and dark-blue eyes who mocked the emotionless face by showing nothing but one thing, emotion, motivation: Pure raw hatred.

"I say again: Shoot on sight."


	18. Shoot to run, run to live, live to fight

Hi folks. I'm gonna tell the gunners story in flashbacks. The next chapter will be about how chief and James try to establish defenses against the oncoming hordes of dead and Grunningham trying to get the cops on his side. Sorry for using 'Him', 'Her' and 'his', 'hers' and 'then' so often. I'm trying to avoid it as much as possible. And every time there's a --- that means that I'm switching from one person's point of view and thought (including knowledge about what happens and about the background) to another's. Example:

Kim

---

Cops

---

Kim again. Simple! And now back to story.

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Manhunt. Now he truly knew what that meant. It had alsways just been something far away on tv-screens or in the newspaper. But now he was the one to be hunted.

"Get him! Kill Him!" A voice behind him shouted. A very close voice. He was a fugitive now, he was to be 'shot at sight'.

He ran down the last flight of stairs and just to his right was the entrance to what seemed to be a kitchen. He ran through the open passage and spotted a cop. The man raised his gun, but the runner held the weaponhand blocked and rammed his bajonett into the mans shoulder, wounding him enough to make him lose control. The man fell to his back, dropping his radio, but not breaking it. He took both the small radio and the revolver from the injured man's hands. Then he closed the door behind him. The room had no other people in it. Good. A table and a chair stood around. And the door had a keyhole with the fitting key in it. Good. _Finally _(his lungs took in another sharp breath of air, cold air that seemed to sting inside him like a thousand needles) _something fits_ He grabbed the chair as fast as he could and pulled it towards the door. Then he turned the key and slammed himself weakly into the door. It held. Good. He broke the key so that it couldn't be turned inside the lock and blocked it in total. After that he looked around, hearing footsteps on the stairs. "That way! We'll make him pay!" _No I will get away or die trying!_ Harsh bangs smashed against the door. More Sweat formed on his entire body as he clacked open the drum of his revolver while looking around. Fully loaded with six bullets. _No, with six chances._ It was astonishing how fast people could get to know new habits. His lungs were still burning from the too high amount of oxygen they had to transport, his heart kept pressing into his chest like it never did before.

Everytime someone tried to get him in prison (and in the end kill him by doing that) he had to fight. Most people wanted to kill him, and he had to protect his life. And everytime someone had to be shot or stabbed to keep himself alive, everything only got worse.

_I can only lose. But what is the alternative? Rotting in a cell and starving because the cops leave to fight and die with the keys still among them, beeing shot by fanatized policemen, or simply freeze to death, bleed to death, having a bloodinfection from my wounds and fever to death, or just be eaten alive._

_So my only options are: Run, hide and fight or die trying. Whatever I do is wrong in their eyes and only fuels the spiral of hatred and death even more. __Even though we shouldn't fight ourselves._

"Hah dude Adrenaline! You'll get used to it!" James had always been a bit... strange but funny. And a good shot. But no more.

_A window. Good. _He opened it and stepped out into a dark sideway.

---

Ignoring his bleeding wound for as much as he could the officer behind him got up and rested himself on the chair that the fugitive had appearently dropped for him. "Officer- Oh the bastard took my radio."

---

To his right was a wall. To the left, about of 30 meters away was a grey steel-door. It was made of small straws and looked like a prison-gate._ Everything looks like a prison when you're to be hunted._ He ran for it. "His" Radio beeped: "All units fugitive sighted in doorsby alley 13 all units nearby engage hunt : shoot on sight."

"Run fer it!" Ratting, also dead for long.

He had made two steps and saw the sideway clearly now. Also he heard a shotgun firing. _They broke the lock. The easy way. _Of course he didn't have a shotgun. But at least a revolver. And his trusted knife. He had made it through half of the alley as he _felt _someone going through a window on the first floor and land on the marble. He had no time to fight now. _Bad cover. The trash-bags and paper-boxes don't offer any protection. _There was a huge trash-container made from metal or steel. He could hide behind that and ambush them. _That would take too much time. Warfare may never be static. And every second I waste they get up more troops. And the two cops would fall into my uncovered back. Two-front war.  
_

"We will make it I promise!" Chief, always the optimist.

---

He heard a voice behind him: "Wade are you sure this is the right person?" Kim was still not convinced. What the policemen told her indicated a wild animal or a coldhearted serialmurderer. But the picture didn't look like the one of someone capable of a such crime. The whole thing looked more like a royal's fox-hunt to her. _Poor foxes, beeing hunted without any chance of escaping at all..._

---

_A teenager. No weapons, and even in doubt of what a man forced to kill can do. Good. _He bit the blade of his bajonett at a clean place and checked if his revolver was safe in the jean's pocket. It was. Good. _Maybe I can run away without having to kill someone this time..._

He knew it was just a very small chance, but a chance worth to fight for. _Fighting that can't get someone saved is useless murder. _

Steps echoed behind him. The threat was coming closer, and he was infront of the door. He was right, he had to climb since the door was secured with a chain-lock. Another problem came up. Barbed wire above the door. And more steps echoed from the other side of the door, located left from it. "Kill him!": A determined voice shouted.

His tongue tasted cold steel as he bit deeper into his bajonett. He inhaled more than was good for him and jumped. His hands contacted the sharp wire. And harsh pain.

---

_Does he jump? Oh why can't those villains just for one time- is that barbed wire? _A muffled scream, barely hearable but still there reached her eyes. _Okaaaaaay Fine then the hard way. Strange fox-hunt. And normally people hunt me. _She huffed her shoulders and sighed. "But I'm the blue fox."

---

He pulled himself up, which made the sharp metal cut deeper into his hands. The pain made him grip stronger and bite harder. Both things were not good. The left foot was on the metal-block that shielded the lock and the right was on a loose brick, so he didn't have to pull himself up only by his arms. He knew that he lacked the muscle for that. And that he had no time for a second try.

"Just bite: that gets the pain out!" Ratting again, during the time he had been the team's medic.

He was on top of the wire now, standing with his shoes upon them. Luckily they were thick enough to keep the sharp iron away. _I'll need peniciline after that. _It was raining badly, and his clothes started to smell like rusted iron. They always did when his sweat and rainwater soaked his clothes.

"Shoot!" At first he thought it would be the cops, but then he realised it was the chief's voice.

Tudock- his half-boots made contact with stone as he landed, he had been prepared for slippery ground. So he didn't slip and fall. _That would cost me dearly. I've made enough stupid mistakes for which my friends had to pay with their lives for. _Stopping the kneeling he got up and heard steps behind him. Again. There was always someone chasing, hetzing him since the river. _No, since Upperton. _The bajonetts grip felt good in his left hand, and the revolver gave him a false sense of security through the right one. But he didn't trust that sense. He had seen what happened when one felt safe though he wasn't. More than once. He knew the two cops who chased him were close. Just around the corner. He didn't expect the girl to be fast and pressed himself against the corner. Putting his bajonett the way that his thumb was on the knob and the blade stretched out of the fist on the outer side of his body he rested his revolver on the fist. Just so that the barrel didn't stretch over but rest upon the beginning of the thumb's bone. And then he charged.

---

"Kill him we-" George the cop, wielding his shotgun, came around the corner, his partner, a young trainee named Ben, behind him.

Blammm

The pain in his left chest grew immensly as something hot and fast entered his body and smashed him into his partner, who startled but not fell. But he did. _His eyes... They are so cold. Just as dark as the gun's barrel. _He knew that a "pocket-cannon" as the 38.revolver was called was a rather weak weapon and that most persons survived a hit even in the lungs when they were operated quickly. But he didn't think that it would hurt so much. His finger disobeyed the will of his brain to shoot at least into the direction of the criminal and he fell on his back.

"Oh god George NO!" Ben knelt down instead of firing upon the criminal, gripping his friend by the collar and shaking him. Then he saw the criminal's face. And the gun pointing towards his head. "No please No! I- I can"

"Give me your weapon. And his. Then you are free."

Ben shakily handed over his sidearm but didn't grip for his friends shotgun. The shock and fear were too deep. Whoever that man/teen was gripped the pistol with his knifehand's fingers and pressed it upon the thumb, holding it barely, while his right bent down to the 12-gauge George had dropped. After that the person ran beside him, a bit blood went down the inward of his hands.

"Get this animal and kill him you hear!" 12-George, as his colleages called him because of his love for shotguns, shouted at his younger fellow.

"But-"

---

Kim came around the corner. She had ran backwards to the garbagecontainer to have a good place to perform a backflip from. She hadn't wanted to grip that barbed wire. She saw a young and inexperienced policeman kneeling beside another who lay on the ground. A small puddle of red was forming around a place on his chest where he had put his hand upon.

"What happened?" She asked in a worried tone.

"The bastard shot me! Go get and kill him!" Then to his friend: "See that's what happens when we let lunatics run free!"

"But George he tried to explain something when you hit him in the face-"

"SHUT UP! And "- ( he gripped to a radio attached to his belt, detached it and led it to his mouth) "You get that man!"

Kim was shocked to see and hear this. She had met many "bad" and "evil" things and sights but never had someone shot or killed someone else. Sure, Drakken often tried to kill her by using exotic creatures and Shego wasn't the friendly type with her green hot-as-hell plasm. But this was different. It was... not subtil and direct. It wasn't fighting and becoming unconcious and then beeing tied up to be left for an exotic death with plenty much time and possibilities to escape. This was almost like an...execution. Like something without ANY way to bypass it.

"Go get and KILL the bastard! He deserves IT!"

Kim spoke against that. The officer needed serious medical attention. "No you need-"

"I'm fine now get him! Maybe you're the only one who can get him at all!"

His friend, the shocked one who still knelt and fummeled with a bandage for the wound, spoke: "Aren't you the girl that can do anything?"

"Okay fine." She couldn't resist anymore. "But make sure you get medical attention!" She sped past them, the only thing she could hear was the noise of a radio beeing turned on and the wounded man's voice: "Officer down! Requesting SWAT reinforcements!"

She pulled out her kimmunicator while running down an alley and the picture of a young slightly darkskinned teenager appeared. "Wade I need you to track down that fugitive!" "Okay (he typed an order into his keyboard with lightning speed) Now you've got a motion sensor attached to the screen." She looked at the small window in the upper right and sighed. It was dozens of signals, most of them moving. "Wade I am searching one man and not the enitre population!" "Hmmm (he stroke his chin) Do you have something i could distinguish him with from the others?" "Ummm (she closed her eyes and thought: _blood_) Yeah! wait a moment!"

She ran the way back to the alley with the gate. Both Cops where not there. Sirens could be heard around. She checked her gloves for any holes (she didn't want to hurt herself) and took a small blop of red life-juice from a sharp-looking rusty iron part. Then she asked Wade: "Can you trace him by blood?" She didn't really believe that but it was the only trace she had. "Yeah sure I can make DNA- analyzis and then make conclusions on the pheromone output and try to trace it." She blinked twice. "Put the blood on the small table (a small round place looking like a mini-mini-cd-drive came out of nowhere from the device) and I can find him." "Okay" She did it and wiped off the rest of the blood at a wall nearby and asked: "But isn't that extremely complicated and takes weeks to go? I mean genetics isn't easy!"

"Oh not in my world." He pressed a button in an almost kingly way. "There you go." All the points vanished but one who was moving and only a block away. "Thanks Wade you're a lifesaver!" Normally this would have made Wade show a gesture of 'beeing the master' but this time he didn't. Instead he only moved closer to his screen and typed something. "Wade?" She shifted her head to one side and looked at the device quizically. "Oh I'm just compensating for a bit of other smells. For example the clothes smell like someone else and... Whiskey." She was more than just surprised but also disgusted:

"WHISKY?"

"Sorry not just normal Whisky." She arched a brow. "Jack Daniels Tenesse Whiskey!"

She sighed loudly and asked: "IS there a difference?" "Yep its not just cheap booze."

---

He was making his way further into the dark city. It would dawn soon. Maybe in one hour, maybe in 3 minutes, who knows? Well, he didn't. He knew he was beeing hunted. Not only by humans. _How long am I up now? 18 hours?_ _I'm tired. I just want it to end. Why can't they just stop hunting me, sit down and listen? _He sat down on a bench near a park, right where everyone could see him. But for one moment in his life he didn't care about it. _Just a short break. _

"Sometimes a man must rest my boy!" Henry in his best mood, but also dead by now. _i can hear their voices. Are they haunting me or is it just memorys my brain tries to cope with?_

A couple walked by and looked at the person. They saw a bum sitting on a bench in a dirty old black jeans-jacket which he caried open and which would go down to his knees while standing. Underneath was a once white shirt that had a few stains of a brown-yellow liquid and a faint push-through of three slightly red lines going from the left shoulder to somewhere at the belly. At the place where there should normally be naked skin shown by the deeply cutten out button-shirt where two lines of bandage covering the place between the left shoulders turnball-armconnection and the throat. The red lines were clearly seen there and were less subtil at the place that wasn't covered by the button-shirt. The similar was with the small part of his upper-chest that could be seen by the not button-closed cut-out of the shirt. But it was not a t-shirt and neither a fully button-shirt. It just could be closed at the throat by three buttons and otherwise was a normal t-shirt. It's thickness was somewhere between a normal thin t-shirt that didn't protect from the cold of the early morning and a polo-shirt that might be a bit too thick. It went underneath the jeans into certainly boxershorts. The jeans however didn't look to good either, the left upper-leg had a small cut. Overall the entire clothing (except the button-shirt) was not covered in dirt or any liquid: they were just old, worn-off and a bit dusty.

---

"Also I located a trace from an unknown bacteria that seems to be...inactive in his body... wait... hmmm strange can't find it- Ah at least something similar! The curellus Sertis- a parasitc bacteria that embedds itself in viruses to get to its victims, african poo-bugs."

---

The man turned away in disgust as the wind blew strong and carried a weak stench of whiskey. _Hey the fine lord isn't used to see people who don't have something better than jack-daniels to treat their wounds huh? Or no-wait I am just a bum to him and his fine lady! Ha but at least I am not gonna die a miserable death here! At least if I can prevent it that is..._

He looked at himself. His body was waving up and down as he sat there, among with his breathing which - thankfully - came back to normal. His shotgun rested standing at his right side. The two revolvers and the old cops radio were on his upper-legs. He had been unloading the second revolver when the couple came past and the three rounds from it rested in his lap, obviously seeable.

They came for him one winter's night, he rested he was bound-

_And old song-text. Wait how did it go? Oh yeah!_

They said there'd been a robbery, his pistol had been found.-

He knew that he'd been wronged- _No that came later. Aurggh I should focus on the task at hand._

The man spotted the rifle and the two pistols and packed his woman at the arm. Both sped up and were out of view after a few seconds. The sirens had come to a halt in distance. Means: they still sounded their Whuhu-Whuhu but they didn't come closer anymore.

"Yes just deny your only saviour, foolish humans!" When he was a bum now, he at least wanted to brabble like one.

---

She turned around after having brought about 5/6 of the way behind herself. It was the two cops. Their uniforms were a bit... badly fitting but everything else was alright. "I thought you would go to the hospital? So you want to come along? Is your wound treated?" She asked but did not receive an answer. Instead the two persons came closer. "At least I can track him down with this!" She sad happily while showing the kimmunicator to both. One shifted his head a bit but the facial expression remained unchanged. "Anyway lets go!" She ran after the signal.

It was a park. And she saw the fugitive sitting on a bench.

---

He looked at the bottle of whiskey he had among from the man he took the clothes from. Brows raised up as he saw the name-tag: _Whow! Jack-Daniels! Man that costs pretty much even at the supermarket my brother works at. He even has a t-shirt with I-know-Jack on the front and a big picture of the bottle at the back. The laugh. _(he smiled a bit) _my brother, family. Home. They are so far away but still they will die if I fail. Oh wait I already failed. Hell why not give it a try then? _He opened the bottle, put a bit on his hand and carefully ribbed into his hands. It burned. Then he put a bit to the small and nasty cut at his left upper leg. It burned like hell. _Oh not medical alcohol but at least a bit for desinfecting the wounds. _After this he looked at the bottle again and smiled faintly. And took a sip. It burned again, but for once not in a bad way.

---

Kim came closer, carefully but she did. She saw the person smiling at the bottle and then taking a sip. _Oh great an alcoholic_

"So you brought some Crawlers among to kill me huh?" _Crawlers? No-_

"These are regular policemen and they will arrest you-"

"Huh! They will kill me and then you. They are not human." _Okay that's it - first he shoots them and then HE names them inhuman._

"YOU are not human and-"

"Look at his chest. Shouldn't a man with a gunwound be in shock at least? Or even unconscious? Especially after losing much blood?"

She frowned, the men kept standing behind her, out of view. Her kimmunicator beeped and she got to it. Just as she wanted to say her usual sentence Wade got to the point: "Kim there are two beeings with a much higher bacteria-concentration then the small thrace he has and- (his face paled) they are behind you!"

"Of course they are they're the two cops I met earlier!"

---

Lt. Bruga entered the crime-scene. One criminal. _Hmmm_ _doesn't explain Swa- holy SHIT._

He turned his head away from the immense rotten smell and the sight of two bodies hanging at the ceiling with their own guts as a hanging-rope around their necks. Their Eyes and entire skin were missing. Only a few muscles had remained in place on their heavily mangled skeletons and the entire room was covered in blood. He felt his knees giving out and slipped on a sea of blood to his back. Then he passed out.

---

Both the young man and wade spoke in perfect unison: "No they aren't."

With this everything seemed to happen at once. The young man aimed his pistol at one of the cops, while the other made a terribly loud shreeeeeeeeek-sound that made her shudder painfully. Then came the first shot. It seemed to pass in low-time since she saw it wirling through the air, whizzing its deadly payload towards the policeman. She couldn't turn her head in time but heard the round impact in the man's head with a pluck-sound. Then the other one moved towards the man. His way of movement was strange. His upper body bowed down and his arms were stretched out in a strange pattern. Another blamm errupted as a new round left the gun's barrel toward the now storming cop. Kim saw every turning in the air the bullet made, every small new ring which came to the spiral that flunched behind the small cylindrical messenger of death. Memorys of her father speeking his favourite sentence came: "Three, two, one",

_Impact._  
Pluftttt_- SHREEEEEAAIUUUUuurrrrrr_

Something touched, gripped held her shoulders. Everything was in slow-motion again as the man, ignoring the only for a split second halted attacker he had for his own, ran forward, dropping his revolver, drawing out a rather long knife from the left side of his jeans-covered hip and running towards her. The grip got more intense and she felt helpless. _Oh no not even Shego is so strong-_

Another loud shot erupted.

_Impact _behind her came a shreeeek-scream similar to the one the other "cop" had made when beeing hit. The man started to drive his knife towards her face, using his right hand to shoot another round at the other attacker. Kim made her peace and closed her eyes. _Bye mom and dad and- _But it didn't end. The trippling sound of the two cops and the deeper of the fugitives boots still mixed. Then another shout came from a cop and she opened her eyes. She saw the two standing infront of her, he slashing at the man with his knife. The blade danced sidewards, pulling a thin stream of orange blood that dripped from the blade, then turned in his right hand and stabbed forward, into the cops body. It twisted out of the body as the criminal jumped back to slash at the other man and evade a counterblow from the now bleeding policeman.

_"...Gunwound?_ _Losing much blood?" _

His body turned to run to the bench, drawing both cops with him, and he took the rifle from it after passing his knife into the left hand. Then he jumped over the bench, turned and rested the rifle on the wooden obstacle.

Kims eyes widened as she saw the man resting his head closer onto the weapon and closing his left eye. A sound, almost deafening to her ears but appearently not to his mocked the silence of the early morning.

TPLAAUMM the small yellow lightnings, maybe hundreds or only two, flung back the jumping and only more 5 feet away younger cop. It was caught midflight, but didn't become slower for just a bit. He ducked and the creature, its assault spoiled, sailed above his head.

---

_I wonder how long it takes it to regain balance? Whow I can think while fighting! Outstanding! Now to the task at hand..._He stood up and jumped over the bench like a man in first worldwar and ran (while shouting like a maniac) towards it. The thing, surprised by the sudden change of roles reacted too late. It's arm came to him , he emptied the 12's chamber and rammed the barrel inot its throat. And blasted it away, its green blood-brain mix splattering away to the opposite direction of himself. He hadn't aimed at its face since he knew a good reason for that.

---

She couldn't believe that man was killing a policeman. He took out the gun from the poor mans body by letting him fly 6 feet before impacting the ground hard. His strangely green blood and several guts unknown to her flew through the area behind "him".

---

_YES! POINT BLANC! _ He rolled back the lumbermade part underneath the barrel with his left hand, who still held the bajonett, and didn't turn around. He had learned that it would be the worst thing to do in such a moment. Instead he turned jumped to the left side, turned in the air and looked. The expected attack hadn't come.

---

Kim stood there, paralyzed. Until her kimmunicator rang again and vibrated in her hand. Even though not taking it up to her face and looking she knew it would be Wade. "Kim get out of there! I bio-scanned the cops and they are not cops!" Her mind was slowly proceeding through the seen things and only said: "Yup" She saw the other cop lying on the ground behind the bench. _Is he dead too?_ _The other one stopped moving after flying around..._

"Kim Police forces northern from here! Get to them now! Whatever the other cop was I can't locate it!"

"Wade I think he is dead." She looked normal but inside her everything was brooding. "I'll go to the cops." So she ran towards the policemen. One was kneeling and looking towards her and the other was throwing himself to the ground as she looked.

---

_Oh fuck. _The first would open fire in a split second and the other was already lying for better aim. He ran. At first he ran to the right, towards an alley, but then he changed course to another alley, making a zick-zack movement. The first weapon, from the sounds a 5'er opened. He heard the 9mm rounds zirr past his body and the place he had just been in a mere eye-blink before. After that he jumped to the ground and made a role, got up before beeing gone into the same direction for too long and rolled to the left. Rolling saved his life as he heard the heavy 7.62 smash into the ground where he had been before, throwing small chunks of strret-marble everywhere. _If I only had a smokegrenade._

---

Kim threw herself to the ground when the first bang came. It was, basically seen, the same as when Dementor's or Drakken's henchmen shot at her with their imprecise laserguns. But this was...slower and deadlier. She even saw Ron evading their fire by simply making his lame dance. But this was different. Those people wouldn't miss in a hundred years. Except-

---

"Uffff He made another duck-role, this time a bad one, since he knew these marksmen would expect him to make a full one because he had made a such earlier. But they didn't expect it, that's why no shot rang for another short moment. Every second they had to readjust their aim because he ran into a different direction (and they had to shoot to where he would be when he kept walking like that since the bullets were fast but not THAT fast) or when they just had to aim lower or higher, a bit more to the left or right. The harder it would be to follow his movements, the safer he was. And the more difficult it was to estimate his next move, the better for him. He didn't look at them since it would be a mistake. It would need up his badly required brainresources only to see more in detail what he already knew. That he was fucking much screwed. And it would cost him time, just the time the sniper or the machinegunner or the ordinary armed swatter would need to kill him. And he wanted to live. So he did what every veteran, every hunter, hell every soccer- and football-player did: He trusted his instincts.

---

_Why don't they shoot? He is a murderer! Oh No don't think that kim don't think that you only want to get him into prison, only prison..._

But she wasn't so sure about that anymore. What he had done, how he had shot... like it would be everyday business... and he obvously doesn't care about law and order! She really didn't know if she would still think that prison would be enough if that would have been her dad or if she would have been his wife. She was just...confused. But then she made a decision: "I will have a talk with that guy!"

---

He ran past a car and allowed himself a small brake of a second or too. Then he ran on. And , as expected, was greaten by a volley of fire. But he had always been a trickster: He had thrown his empty revolver (he had another one in his pocket, loaded with at least one round) from the car. That had made the cops shoot and he ran while they shot. He left the pistol where it was _would take too long to get it back _and ran again. This time he just ran. It was only twn meters and he wouldn't risk them to just barage the way with the machinegun so he couldn't move and then snipe him off with the left ordonance. His plan worked. He escaped.

---

"Kim I can find the bio-signature! It seems to have used the cops looks to-" the battery ran out. Just in the important moment. But she didn't care. She stood up and ran to the alley the young man had disappeared to. But someone held her off. "Don't lady! He's too dangerous!"

"But I need answers!"

Just as the man wanted to speak his radio came to life. It was Bruga's partner, Jeoffrey: "Everyone come here! This is important people!" He took it from the belt and spoke to it: "Alpha-team maintain radio-discipline!" "But Bruga is hurt and Oh god you have to seet this!"

"I say again rad-"

"THEIR SKIN IS MISSING! NO HUMAN COULD HAVE DONE THAT!"

The captain, still with his othet hand resting on Kim's shoulder looked worried: "Beta-team-"

"OH God he's here! Take that you bastard (loud gunfire came out of the radio, easily hearable even meters away)"

"Alpha main-"

The captain was interrupted by a very loud and painfull scream, he shuddered from the very loud noise and held the radio away. The scream still didn't end. Kim froze. _Oh god he's here... what do- he means HIM that man is killing again! _

"Everyone to the warehouse NOW!" They all, including frightened but curious Kim, ran back. After 3 minutes of fast sprinting they arrived.

---

He was breathing heavily. They must have followed him. He prepared for his maybe last battle.

---

They entered the door. Kim recognised it. It had been where the injured cop had been lying in front of. _Just the cop who attacked me... weird. _

_---_

_They know I'm here._

_---_

A Swat-man armed with a huge-looking weapon entered first. After him came two men with smaller weapons, the captain with a similar small gun, her, and the man with long and loud weapon that always made a clack-clack twice after firing. Wanted to enter a sideromm when the man with the hefty-weapon suddenly pressed her to the wall to get through and started to throw up heavily while leaning against the wall with his arms. "Oh god in heaven!" She looked at the door and the captain came out. His face was as pale as a ghost and he only shook his head all the time. She wondered what could have caused that and entered.

Everything was red. Blood-red. And on the ceiling were- _Oh what a monster! _She turned away and ran out of the room. _He EMPALED that officer with his own gun! _She fought to get the image out of her head but couldn't. It was burned in. She began to cry and rested her head into her hands. _And these two people- They are the cops I worked with! _"If I wouldn't have run after him I would hang there too!"

"My my it's not your fault Lady." The captain had regained a bit of his facial color. "There are sick people everywhere. Even in Middleton."

"But -sniff- how is that man, I mean, he wasn't here when I found these two-"

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"That man sat on a bench and drunk whiskey while I followed him!"

A third voice came: "Yeah It can't been him! I was here 10 minutes ago and found the two hanging! I passed out and NOW the third one hangs there! No human can walk away, kill these two, take their skin off-"

"I GOT your point Bruga!" Captain sounded harsh and nodded towards the crying teenager.

"Oh yeah I- (Kim looked up and saw the man standing in the house-entrance) mean just (the man came closer. He had a sick grin) that how (the hell shall one man) "-

"Look!" Was all Kim managed to get out of her dry throat.

---

He knew they would come for him. Now he would show them. That he was better. And more. He would show them EVERYTHING.

---

Bruga turned around but was thrown through the entire room by the man. Kim wanted to scream but couldn't, but she managed to backflip out of Brugas flight-way and away from the others. Hefty-man looked up from his vomitting to see that an arm came to his head. It was smashed and cut off and his life- and headless body collapsed into his puke, the blood of his main artery mixing with his own vomit to a weird psychedelic picture of weird perfection and beauty. The captain raised his mpi and fired twice but the man was way to fast. He slashed at the officers torso and his fingers cut through it like deadly skalpells, throwing him into the wall in a shower of his own blood.

And all this with a more than crazy smile and empty sockets where human eyes should be. Kim looked at him and the sniper that came through the door made it to evade from his strike, jumped down, turned on the ground and fired into the person just a millisecond before the hand clawed into his lungs and heart, ripped out the entire inner-organs among the ribcage and threw it all to the wall. Another officer came out of the room only to share the fate of Hefty. Kim looked and he looked at her. _I won't go down without a fight! _She went into combatstance and ran to him. She would attack. But the thing was stricken in the back by a loud sound. He turned only to receive another heavy sound and gripped his face, or to say better, what was left from it. Kim stopped running and looked startled. He released his hand while receiving another sound like it would be nothing. The entire right side of his face was missing. But there was no skull or flesh to carry the skin that was missing. It had simply vanished like a mantle that flew away from the wind. Underneath was a sort of triangle with a cluster of bloodred eyes. The rest of the face looked like it would be normal, except for the missing eyes and the sickening crazy smile.

A new bang came from behind her. "RUN!" It was the man named Bruga who fired his mp into the thing, not reaching anything but small holes in the skin. Wherever he hit the skin didn't burn, bleed or fly away in bits. It simply disappeared, stopped to be there, to exist.

He turned around to face the one who made the loud sounds and saw himself. And Kim saw it too. The criminal stood there, before her, had slaughtered almost the entire team like sheep and was attacked by itself. _What the hell is going on here? _The "other" Criminal carried a rifle in his hands. It aimed at itself. Or its mirror-picture. He gave a loud shreek and fell to the ground after his own twinbrother rammed the rifle into his dark copies throat and fired.Kim saw the red eyes become empty and shallow as it flew backwards, missing its small triangle-head. Bruga's eyes widened as he too saw the picture. The fugitive shot the same fugitive who killed with inhuman speed and strength. But the criminal became different. Its entire skin simply vanished into small black dust who fell away like ash. What left over was a thin and almost skeletal creature with a triangled head and sharp long claw-like fingers.

---

"The Virus who gave birth to these creatures and made the ENTIRE population of Upperton become insane Murderers is coming to this town. They march on the highways and countryroads that lead from Upperton to here and will arrive soon. If you can't prepare this town by getting every man and woman to carry a gun we all will die. And if we fail will we become just what they are: The living dead. Only kept alive by the wish to kill and feed on humans. And more things like this one are coming too. (he pointed at the dead creature before him)

If you still not believe me, go to hell. If you want to know more about this you can track me down and speak to me. But I WON'T (he bent down to grab Hefty's m249 machinegun and took it) be the one to fight your ignorance. If you can't convince your superiors to make this town a fortress is it not my fault. And If you could please look for Henry Rockwaller, Henry DeMar and the chief of Upperton Police-Department? IF they survived they will confirm my story and train you to fight these things. (He put the carrying-belt of the machinegun over his shoulder, letting it hang before his chest with his hands at it) Then he took an ammo-pack secured at Hefty's belt and put it to his own and turned around.

"You have been given a chance. The people of Upperton didn't have that chance. Put it to good use. Thou have been warned"

---

And with this the stranger left, leaving her, the knife-injured cop who hid on the upper floor and Mark Bruga behind.


	19. Admin says: One gets kicked!

„We'll make it out I promise!" He had told his 11 men. But he only brought out 3 alive, and the fourth was still missing. And hope to find this still lost group-member dwindled every moment and that hurt him deeply. _You failed mark, you failed _he thought, quietly brooding, to himself. _I know i failed but I will keep this town from becoming the same slaughterhouse! They took everything from me but they won't take anyone elses life away! _He didn't mean that ust literally. He and his men might have survived with their bare lives, but what a "life" could one expect? They had nothing but their clothes on and their weapons. And horrible memories.

They sat in that warehouse, the night was still rather young, and echoes of people and happenings past ago came back to him. And the voices.

"Eat that mofo!" He smiled. Bruga indeed was a maniac. Was. He had heard of Bruga's brother beeing in the Middleton-police. Maybe he should try to get a foot in the door by him. He knew that wouldn't be the nice way, luring someone with news of his dead brother and then using said person's relations to get more manpower. _But whatever gets the job done. _Faintly, again, a smlie krept up his face.

"May I know what is so funny?" 'Grunn' asked while looking through his bloodred eyes.

"Memorys. A few pleasant ones among the many nasty."

The other Police-chief simply put his head back upon his knees and continued sobbing quietly. Chief hurt inside to see another man brake inside from losing someone very close. _To lose those we swore to protect...I know how he feels. _His wife and kids had died. The same with James, he had lost his wife and his two-months old son. _The woman and her kid that got torn into- No _(He turned his head away, closed his eyes and tried to get the picture and the screams away. And, for once, succeeded)

He got even sadder at one thought. _Could that... have been James' wife he had seen dying? _

He hoped not. Ratting had it a bit easier, he had been divorced since two years. It hadn't been a happy scene. More a "the-betrayed-man"-cliche. Poor Ratting had caught her cheating with his boss, and tried to reason with her. "Don't you still love me anymore? Was I not good in bed? Do I put to much time into my work, was that it?" However, she had enough of him for reasons unknown and ran away to his boss. As ratting entered the office he only found the man sitting with his back towards him and the "You-are-fired-now-fuck-off" papers on the table, lying obviously seeable. Ratting had lost control back then, started to drink, and accidently set the bar on fire. It wasn't even his fault. A Wall-street-broker had sought a kick in making fun of him by putting a bit of flamable alcohol on the desk and setting it on fire as he saw ratting, who coudn't buy himself another drink, licking it up. The whole place burned down in only ten minutes. And the owner, knowing that he would lose against the brokers starlawyers, sued Ratting. That the man's license for giving out beer had been expired was not of interest. Poor ratting lost the rest of his money, and just that day his wife divorced, winning the house, the kids and the car. She had just been waiting for a such moment.But the poor pyromane had luck, not only his strange love for fire had begun, no. His wife had the house, but he had the hypothec and the insurance on it. She had missed something. "Stupid bitch she has her more earning boss so SHE can spare the few thousand bucks!" So he set it on fire, including the car (but, of course, at a time the kids and even his ex-wife were out of house) and cashed the money. Luckily it was enough to to pay the bar-assholes sueing. And even a thousand bucks left so he could effort a motel while beeing unemployed. After that he went to the military, seeing his only chance there. After the basic drill and the first months of his training as a demolitions expert his life lit up.

Literally.Another accident, this time it was a drunken major on inspection on the base, set it a hangar on fire, ruining the prototype aircraft that was tested there. Ratting had managed to put it out with an extinguisher in under three minutes and even won a medal for saving at least the electronics of the plane. The hull wasn't THAT expensive. Just a billion of tax-payer's money or so. But the major had the fear Ratting would tell someone about his "little problem with bottles" and the "accident" so he let his relations play for him. Albert, beeing the hero of the base, got "an offer" to "voluntearly leave the service".

His life had been in ashes again, but, to his luck, the local fire-department contacted him. Mostly because his friend, another demo-man who completed his drill, and a lot of his comrades (and even base-personal he didn't know of it existed at all) told them about rattings medal and what he got it for.

And with that, Albert Ratting, the pyromaniac, became a firefighter. After burning the major's SUV and house of course. AND letting it look like an accident. Everytime there had been a practising with real flames ratting had been the one to 'let it burn biatch' as he said. The hunger to set people and things on fire randomly was stilled and he had a good life again. Even after some heavy blows.

-

"Gentlemen," chief spoke, pointing at the map of Middleton. "So we will go to road 19 and establish defenses there. Since the major undead forces including special creatures like crawlers, arachs and the-hell-knows-what-else will hit there, my veterans and the majority of our forces will stand there. Mister Grunningham?"

"Y-Yeah?" A weak voice sputtered from a cowering figure "What?"

"I will come with you to ensure support by your police-forces."

"Mkay." Came the unmotivated and shallow answer.

All the other men were standing around him and the small table that held the map. It was James, Ratting with his snipe, Shield-man, the two "new ones", head-wounded private Blobkin, and three men with smaller firearms. Those three had been gangbangers and/or raiders they found and "employed" in the suburbs of Upperton they had driven through, they were not very trustfull. _But, as strange as it sounds, "enemy fire inks together". _Chief knew that when people fought together, and be it only for a few minutes of intense battle, an invisible, unfeelable and subtil bond is established between them. It is a weird, unknown but appreciated sideeffect of war. Sometimes veterans (for example from vietnam) were so confused from their original civil lives that they simply located their mates and moved together. _Hell even I only go drinking with my dudes. Dudes. What an idiotic word. But on the other hand... I don't have a word for them. Max had one... what was it agian... Oh yeah! Comrades! _He had at first thought it would be some sort of communist word but instead he said: _"That's a word they founded in ww2. Ever wondered why the russians had such a hard-time with the german forces? Because they weren't comrades! But their enemys were. It's some sort of...invisible thing that lets you fight harder, longer, and better at all. And strangewise people with a deep comradeship to others never rarely got hit, and moslty only wounded if hit. In all the war-books are only people the tellers 'cause they had that invisible shield infront of them. I don't know how to describe but its some sort of mental brain-to-brain subconscious communication that lets you act as one force. Pretty effecient. But not that I would tolerate for what they fought for. They have just been...lied to and their good-belief in their leaders has been abused by a truly evil man."_

"Yeah...pretty efficient..." he mused before himself, deep in thoughts. Another voice ripped him out of his memorys.

"Ey dawg when do I get a real Gun, man!"

"Yeah I hate this mac10, so the piece of shit!"

"Calm down men we will get better arms soon." Everything fell silent again. It was...strange how they took his commands and even advices for true. Whatever he said was...law in their eyes. A law that wasn't to be broken. _The law of comradeship is never beeing broken. Not even by former criminals. _That was what he believed. In his eyes, everyone could become as loyal and trustworthy as a comrade. Now he understood the pictures of vietnam, korea, iraq and ww2 where soldiers towed their wounded comrades to safety, even through heavy fire. Why they launched counterattacks who cost them 6 men to save 2 from war-prinsonship. _They're family! A second family! _

An insight came to him. Now he understood much more of the invisible bond that mostly, but not only, soldiers and cops connected_.  
_

_---_

Kim felt alone, even with that Bruga around. "I want Ron to be here..." "Huh?" "Oh nothing." She felt like missingher family without Ron.

---

"However people we must move!" Everyone looked at him now. "You will head to that road and build any sort of barricade between these two huge buildings!" Everyone nodded. "Meanwhile will Grunn and me go to his police-station and try to convince the staff to help us in our struggle. Without backup we WILL be lost." Everyone nodded again, this time slower. He had have had a feeling, a... suspection about his role in the group. One sentence confirmed it all:

"Can't James go?" Ratting said, sounding insecure for the first time ever. Chief put his hand upon his fellow companions shoulder and spoke with all the confidence he could find in himself: "Don't worry I'll be fine. And you won't fail. Just keep in mind what you've learned and you are safe." _Now I get it._

"But who takes command then?-I mean I can't."

"Hmmmm (he released his hand) difficult question. Since you're the only two veterans here I'd say you and james do that together, as one part. Don't argue when you're not sure what to do and never fight. Try to find a compromise, I promise you will very rarely have to argue."

The former firefighter, still clothed in his uniform and helmet, wearing his fire-axe and a sniperrifle, looked to the ground. "Don't worry I'll be back in less then one hour!" He patted the pyro's shoulder again and moved to the now standing, but still lethargic looking Grunn.

"Do you think you can manage it?" He asked the sad man, not meaning it as an insult.

"I...I... guess."

"Okay then lets move everyone! Grunn and me will take one van! You all will take the other! Grab any weapons and ammo that lies around on our way and hand it to those with weaker armament!"

No stupidly drilled sir-yes-sirs came, just a collective nodding of heads, at the absolute same time. As they made their ways out they looked at the carnage. The very most bodies had been token away by the black fog (or the creatures in it), except the heavily burned ones. He also spotted a few metallic reflections amongst the still bloodred snow-mud. Weapons. _Yeah metal and steel is hardly eadable. _

They quickly jogged, subconsciously forming a circular formation with him and Grunn in the middle. Everyone pointed their guns out in different directions and waved them back and forth sometimes, to see everything and be ready to fire at any angle. Now he understood. _When we all are some sort of family, it seems like I am their father. That's why they don't want me to leave. I could never come back. And then the bond would be shattered or at least heavily disrupted._

Grunn and him entered the car, chief took a lying mark23 .45 pistol from the ground and put it to his belt, after that he took up the shield that lay on the ground. As he stopped the entire circle did, at one similar time. He turned the shield to get the grip and saw the glove of the man still attached to one side. It looked empty without its hand. He carefully stripped it off, not meaning to insult the dead who carried not too long ago and lay it to the ground respectfully. _Rest in piece brother, rest in piece. _

Now with the shield in his hand, the man went on, dragging the group around him like an invisible anchor holds a ship within a storm._ That's what I am to them, a father...__ a leader. Someone to unite them. _He suddenly understood why many wars of the past and today came and still can come to pass. _Someone unites people and leads them. Well the undead must have some sort of leader too then._

While entering the car he made sure that Grunn took the drivers seat in the blue-black Swat-van. Since he and his men didn't know Middleton (except Henry, dead Bruga, and Ratting, the driver of van number two) was it the right thing in his eyes. He leaned out of the window and barked a last order before letting Grunn drive on: "Remember your only task is to let no one pass! Don't try to raise barricades you are not enough people for that and it takes too long! Only keep them off yourself and busy them with yourself! If you run out of ammo before we arrive or another problem comes up, shoot this signal, (he threw a flare-pistol which Ratting catched easily). And remember your only task is to stay there and keep them from your asses until we arrive with reeinforcements.! Only single shots we must conserve ammo! And tell me what to remember the most!"

Everyone spoke in unison except the three new ones: "Only headers count!"

"And what else?"

Silence.

"I'll tell you: Never leave a comrade behind!"

"Yeah!" "Right!" "mhrmmm" (even the otherwise more passive private mumbled something, which was a rare thing)

"Now speed on men and remember: Safety of comrades and one self has highest priority! We are here to protect and defend, not to uselessly slaughter and get killed ourselves!"

A small wink gave the signal for Grunn and Ratting to drive. 10 minutes later they arrived at LPD-reserve station Middleton. Both got out of the car and saw the sign on top of: LPD. It said: "Yeah that's right we still kick your asses in football!" Chief smiled and even laughed a bit.

"What's s funny?" _Man that guy's negative, well can't blame him he just lost his son. _

"Upperton's still better!" spoke the one chiefs to the other while pointing towards the sign and running for the entrance-door.

This time Grunn smiled a bit. "No way!"

"Yes way!"

"No way!"

"Yes" no-yes-no-yes-no they both laughed and stepped in AFTER making sure they had stopped laughing. One wrong laugh or gesture could end humanity now. Both felt the weight of billions of innocent lives resting on their shoulders. "Ready?" "Yep." Chief tossed open the door and let Grunn follow him, a small and subtile gesture that proved to be the right decision.

---

Everyone looked at the man who entered the room first. A stern face, determined look and upright stance showed military or police-force background. The right arm, cut off right underneath the connection of upper- and lower arm, and the left arm resting on a pistolholster at his police-belt (which had to be reversed in his trousers to fit the right side) radiated a strength that didn't come from raw muscle. Behind him followed "their" chief. Everyone smiled at the sight, buth their smile faded as they saw his sad face and the eye-sockets who looked dryed.

"What happened?" One of the cops asked, worried tone in the voice.

"Please give me the p.a.speaker." One cop tossed it to him while standing up and bending forward, almost falling upon his desk. "Here you go chief." He pressed the on-switch and sighed. "Men and women of this station. This is a call to arms and a direct order. I want everyone who can even just barely HOLD a weapon to be at the carpark in t minus 7 minutes. Fully geared, tooled up and armed. And I mean EVERYONE no one stays her and we will leave any doors open, including the cells. All of you have trusted me for many years, now I plea you all for this trust. Everyone except the armory-guards and the cell-block commander are to execute these orders NOW! And I mean NOW. If I encounter ANYONE on the floors of this station after 7 minutes from now on will be turned over to the internal's cause of hinderence of a major operation. I know each and everyone of you people, I know you doubt this order's sense and I hope that I won't have to use that measure. Please trust me only this one time. (He sighed heavily, making any cop in the building's hairs stand upright) They... they... (then he pressed it out) killed my son!" After that he pressed the phone to the not surprised chief and ran out ot the building. Everyone heard his crying and his sobs.

"Ladies and gentleman I hope you are tooling up just now. My name Is Harold Moron, and I am the chief of the now extinguished Upperton Police-department. You heard right. Everyone except me and one more Swat-member are dead. A sickness has come over Upperton that makes everyone infected a Zombie. I think you all know what that means? (Everyone in the entryhall, which was already a busy office, nodded) Good. The entire population has "turned" and has attacked and killed any non-infected persons inside the town. They have overrun both the Police and Army-forces in town and are on their way to middleton as I speak. A small group of armed survivors under my lead are establishing a small defence-line towards Highway 19. But they will fall and with them this town if you don't support them. I trust you know the consequences to the us and the world if we can't contain this plage. (a few nods, everyone was deep in thoughts) Good. I will release the prisoners and arm them. Don't get me wrong they won't be let free, they will fight among our side or rot in these cells. I trust that you prisoners can hear this too? (he looked at one cop sitting near him, who nodded) Good. You all will be released to freedom if you fight with us and survive this day. You all will be given arms and ammunition. But don't get me wrong people, if only ONE of you makes me regret that decision you all will be shot with no remorse. No matter if you are lousy pocket-thief I belive that we all can cooperate peacefully to save the very mankind. This what I have to say. Out." He put away the phone and made his way to the cell-blocks.

He wasn't familiar with the mpd-lpd-whatever but somehow all departments have similarities. And the signs are clearly readable. IF one can read that is. Entering the cell-block he saw two police-officers. One was a normal-looking man with an mp5 and the woman was... well... just the cop every criminal wanted to be "interrogated" by. To say it prophanely. He approached them and struggled to keep his eyes from the young lady. So he talked to the man.

"I trust you two heard my speech?"

Both nodded and the woman snapped at him: "But don't expect us to speak dog for you!"

"Lady, this town... " he couldn't find the words. He just couldn't. But he tried. Raising his mutilated arm to both he spoke: "I have lost more than just my arm. And very many other people will lose even more if fail to defend this town, no, the people in it. "The man's eyes widened and he just said one thing: "Whow... ermm... okay mister you said open the block right?" while moving to the release-switch. The woman gripped his arm violently while pushing him back. "Uh uh uh mister, (she turned back to him) And who are you anyway? Everyone could just march in here and tell this crap to make no one stay and rob the place!"

"Who would rob a policestation?" He was getting pissed, which was really hard to do. _Anger-sessions- angersessions_

She moved closer to him in a threatening way and narrowed her eyes: "Anyone you one-armed-bandit!"

_Don't get impolite, stay calm stay calm her name-tag says Bruga _"Are you familiar with a Mister Bruga from Upperton?"

She raised a brow. "Who want's to know?" _The man who rips your fucking throat out you stupid useless bi-remember the anger-sessions, remember them, stay calm, think of earl-grey tea, earl grey, tea-  
_

"The man who fought with your father. I saw him dying before my hands. I had to reload and of these monsters used the moment to attack him from behind. He ripped him the ground and bore his teeth into his leg, making him a cripple. Then another bowed down and bit his finger of as he tried to pull out his revolver (the man gulped, the "lady's" eyes softened a bit) _Sorry to do this but if you don't want to listen I'll have to make you listen _I finally managed to get a new clip into my mp5 when I saw him bending up and throwing his badge to me: "Give it to my sibli-" But the legbiter yanked him higher as he tried to finish the sentence and bit his adam's appel out (the man began to vomit into a corner, chief put another step closer to her, narrowing his eyes and gazing coldy and without mercy into them) and the blood shot out of his mouth like a catapult, bathing the badge in his own blood. (He got out the badge from his pocket, took her hand and put the thing into it. She looked at it with eyes as big as tennisballs.)

"And that was not the last thing. Strangely they ignored me, appearently occupied with a new satisfying (he spat the word with enough venom to kill an elephant) meal that even struggled before dying! Not like the 60-thousand whimp-civilians who were done before. No not that one. Not Wladislav Bruga my dear, he fought to the end to make an escapeway for me and do you know how I thanked Him for that?"

No answer, just a truly scared and glassy look.

"I still see the pleading eyes, begging me to end his misery! I still hear his muffled barely hearable screams when anything else is quiet and everytime I close my eyes for longer than a blink I see his face. How he stowed up the air to not bleed even more. How he suddenly puked out his own teeth and blood as they coudn't contain the pressure anymore. And the eyes, my dear, the perfect baby-blue eyes... (he raised his finger and pressed the open switch while talking further) "Were the same when the last round I shot in that 5-hours war entered his forehead. And the things, former people like you and me, stopped and rose up again, gazing with their white ball-less eyes at me. The only thing they showed was hunger. And plain hatred. Both were thrown at me as I could feel their "displeasure" of me ending their meal. I barely made it out of that town and lost my arm on the escape, narrowly avoiding death from one of them wielding a huge axe. Now move to the parking bay the time is running out." After that he turned to the cells from which a few prisoners were already coming out carefully, not knowing what to expect.

"Danny?" A very shaky voice, shortly before breaking, spoke.

"Umm...yeah?" The officer, appearently finished with puking his meal out, replied, insecure, carefull, always ready to step back or run.

"H-hold me" Still the same voice. Chief was surprised to see the woman standing where she had been before. Eyes, from the confused skinny, a bit scared insecure on what to do and the chiefs cold blue gunners eyes met. He nodded a bit towards the woman that still stood with her back to them. Danny, as she had called him, moved to her, bit his lower lip and let his fingers drum against his upper legs. Chief turned around to tell these prisoners what he wanted them and what they would get in return, if they accepted.

---

Danny was confused. His partner, Helen Bruga, was NOT what one expected to see as a female cop. On the one (and out-side) she looked marvellous and very attractive, her short black-red hair beeing marvellous and the fine curves (expecially of her well-made breasts as danny thought be he kept that for himself) were not disturbed by the police-uniform. No the black dress-code only made her look even more... desireable.On the other was the she was really... let's say... direct when it comes to some things. He had made the mistake of trying to hit on her at his first day at lpd. Discretely and carefull, subtil of course. He still remembers the painfull kick in the crotch he had received for only saying she would look nice. At first his new colleages had laughed but no more when she just jogged away and gave them mean looks. _I think the looks weren't the problem. They laughed because it seemed like I had pissed myself. But..._

In fact he had slowly bent down to his knees, holding his (truly and not just ego-like) injured manhood. A long and very shallow whine came as he collapsed to the side and lieing there for two seconds. One of his colleages had (thankfully) gotten the hint and had asked (while still laughing) "Hey it ain't that bad! I got kicked too for looking at her hot ass!"

"Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"

"Errr danny?"

"I'm bleeeeeding... huuuuuuuh"

"Oh fuck-MEDIC!"

It had turned out that his testicals had almost plopped and that something at the connection between you-know-what and his two mangled balls was damaged. One day after the operation he was back at the station, getting pittiying looks by his fellow with-officers. Especially by another new-bee who was mostly sorting files. Said new-bee had encountered that woman once and accidently bumped into her because a huge stack of files blocked his vision. The files flew around and another cop already got the red-cross-bag from its shelve. At first he only said "Sorry my bad," But then the file that lay on his head fell of and he saw the woman. he knew what had happened to poor danny.

"HAH! Please don't kick me! Just and accident REALLY!" Was all the poor young man could blurt out in fear to the woman that towered above him like a rhino ready to literally stomp him ( AND his balls) into the ground. But she didn't. She even took his hand and heaved him up. "Well then... " She even took a few files from the ground and lay them closer to the biggest stack. For that she bent down which draw greedy looks at her buttocks by almost any other policemen. Even most married ones.

"Errrrrrr you don't kick me?"

"I only kick men who sexually harass me even when its just a lame macho-joke or when men fall on my nerves on purpose." After that she went through the floor towards her desk. "And it's nice to see someone who DOESN'T look at my ass all day!"

Silence.

His brain proceeded the information...waiting... blub

As she left through a door the entire room came to life. Everyone was cheering and howling in a super-bowl like manner. He couldn't understand why. "Make photo make a photo!" Someone shouted. A small flash of lightning came and he blinked much. Helen didn't think of that as fun and reentered the room, looking for the reason. Another flash came and she blinked twice: "Who has that fucking camera!" She shouted and behind her a male voice answered: "Me and your butt looks delicious from that height- KDUUUUU" The man, his name-tag reading Hagar Stroenbrad, rested himself at the wall. "Uh yeah that's way I like it-babe."

She grunted loudly in anger to be in a bad position to kick him again and stormed out of the room. "Yeah dude- uuuuhhhh your the first man on this planet who met and didn't get kicked! Congrats man!" Everyone else shouted Hooray and he was the king of the day. He even got a small picture at the "Employee of the month wall" that Hagar volunteered to hang over his own. It read:

"For New-bee: The only man who didn't get kicked!" And underneath was a photo of said New-bee drunk to the bone and dancing on a table in women's underwear. "What an 'honour'." However Bruga found it funny so only Hagar got his standart kick-of-the-day. For over a week.

However just the woman who could easily count up ten men she had beaten to the hospital for touching her demanded to be touched.

_Weird. But maybe It isn't a trap. _Helen was known as a femme fatale but not as a backstepping trap-maker. So he carefully put his arms around her without touching her, and she put her head on his shoulder. _What a luck I'm bigger than her. _Her hands closed up on his back as they stood there, not tightly pressed against each other but beeing close. And he just stood there while she was putting her right shoulder on his left among with her head resting on his body. So she basically stood sideways a bit leant into him and he had his right arm in her hair and his other somewhere hanging at his body. A true surprise caught him as she started to wave a bit left and right while taking the just uselessly hanging hand into hers and pressed it upon her upper tigh. "Dad..." _Oh man I hope she doesn't even cry now that she closed her eyes. I'm not good at comforting and stuff. _Few moments passed that seemed to stretch in danny's mind. He was curious for some action. And standing around like a dummy and waving around wasn't his idea of something not boring. _FINALLY somethings happening and THEN comes the tough-nut of the company and wants to "be held". Oh dude just my luck. I bet this dude leaves without us._

Just the said "dude" came out of the door and saw these too. Worry caught his face as his eyes raced around. "Get her somewhere safe. We'll leave in 3 minutes. You can either stay here, come along or evacuate from town yourselves."

"And whereto then?"

"Hmmmm Lowerton! Try to get the police from there to come here!"

"So We shall just stay and watch? Oh man I want some ac-"

Chief got closer to him and the voice got an insisting tone: "You DON'T want to see the kind of action I described earlier."

Danny just swallowed hard. The man left with the few prisoners the lpd had in trace. The last prisoner however was a known bastard. Everyone knew he was a big number but he only got caught on small delicts. "Oh how touching!"

"Fuck off asshole!"

"Who you call an asshole?" He got closer and made his knuckles knick and knack.

"You, prick!" And with that Danny gave the man what he always wanted to give. A hefty kick. As expected the man slumped together and slowly trotted away cursing and huuuuuuuhing.

"So you DID learn something from me!" Bruga, obviously back to normal.

"Errr... yeah.. I guess." And he was once again the inexpereinced newb.

_Oh man _the thought _first this guy comes up and makes me puke and then bruga get's all emotional. Oh dude what a day.  
_

_--- _

He didn't know it would become a more than just strange day.


	20. What old warehouses are good for

Sorry for the rather many mistakes in the 18th chapter, folks. My concentration goes to hell-knows-where when I wrote for longer times. And I mostly write my chapters in one piece, means I sit infront of the computer for hours. And I always get headache from that, which is responsible for my mistakes. However I will not write any more chapters with headache! I found out the whole thing when I finished this chapter and there might be mistakes of that sort inside. Ceartainly I screwed chapter one so hard cause of the headache. The first sentence already had bad grammar. But nevertheless, new chap and I'll try to keep future chaps clean now that I know what defiled them.

------------m------

By the way in the chapter 18 it was meant: "---Henry Rockwaller, James DeMar--- " and not "Henry DeMar" I don't know how to make that mistake away now that the chap is already out (don't have a copy to replace it either), sooooooo...Reviews that tell me how to correct that mistake would be nice. Oh and the "Run fer it!" wasn't a mistake, it was intended that way.

-----n---------

Two of the surviving members of Grunningham's former team looked at James.

"Got any plans on how to fight?" One of them asked.

"Always aim at the head. And never shoot unless you have a good aim at one's head."

"Aha."

"Everything else is ammo-waste. Never let one of them get closer than 10 feet. If one does, or if you're gonna be surrounded soon: run."

"Why?"

"Cause they're fast as soon they got close enough. I wouldn't believe it myself without having seen it. There's no escape then."

"Okay."

_I'm surprised that the shield-dude doesn't ask any questions. I'll ask him. _"Anyone has experience?"

Both were quiet. Except Shieldman: "Somalia."

"Hmhm." He nodded. _Good at least one with real-war knowledge. _

A few more minutes passed away.

Ratting spoke from the driver's seat. "We're here!"

James opened the door and they stepped out.

Everything was grey, ground, buildings, roofs, streets. A fantastic view opened up to him, wide fields which would carry crops and other corns in the summer, long idyllic streets that lead through huge and wonderfull forests, whose trees seemed to stretch their knots and branches toward the heavens like long thin skeletall arms that prayed to receive salvation for humanities crimes. Small and nice farms with even smaller chimneys puffing thin clouds of black smoke into the grey heaven. Everything was more grey then white, colorless but still something filled this grey and tragic picture with life. Fought subtile against the dying land. Wasn't there a small shine of light striking through the fog who glued upon the ground as high as a man's knee? And isn't there a very small light racing towards a small countrytown? And what about the small barn with many cars parked around it that seemed to host life? It was all there. The long and thick straightgoing speedway towards Middleton, losing itself into small and non-straight countryroads was there too. Also the small blue rivers that seemed to pierce the pale country like blue veins and fueling it with the life-bringing element. Even the small mountains and soft cliffs that are somewhat giving the country another touch of life, of humanity did not miss.

They stood between two old warehouses in the industrial district that nearly no one used anymore. The mayor of town had promised to demolish these old and no longer used brick-buildings, metal melting facilities and car-factories and replace them with family-friendly houses and parks. That way he had won the election. But he quickly forgot that promise as soon as he had won.

"I can't believe this might help us now..." James said more to himself.

"What is it? The old houses? Yeah they could be usefull. Stable as hell I tell ya.", Ratting spoke while putting everyone into a line.

No one needed help, except for the two raiders since they had never done that before. But they learned quickly. James spotted a huge building site that seemed to be full of busy people. Most of them were appearently moving to the upper edge of one fence. Most of them looked into the direction Ratting's squad had looked into. They saw it too. The wonderfull landscape, the small signs of human life and all streets that led into town. It was somewhat a fortunate thing that all streets leading to Upperton went through "Old spook-town" as the locals called the abandoned factory-complex. Only one corporation dared to settle there, seeing the low ground-costs. Hence the building-site.

James turned around to see once again what made the entire picture so lifeless. So seeming like an old dream that neared to it's end. He froze.

"Allright men lets go that building site!" Ratting sensed they still had time. Precious time to build trenches, barricades or something else that would aid them in their hopeless struggle.

They had no one to call, no one to mail, and no one to talk to. They could make no one take this task from them. No one would be there in time. Couldn't they sumon upon someone? No, the army wouldn't listen, the police? Already coming.

_Pah maybe 50 cops against 60.000. What a laugh. _What 60k did he mean? James turned his head towards the "picture". No even Picasso or Rembrandt could have painted it better. _Life is still the best artist. _

Brown and thick was it; slowly, like a snail, steadily and inevitable making its way, smashing, cushing, or simply swallowing and engraving everything in its way.

The stream of walking dead, population of a city as dead as its former residents. A gigantic mass of matter streamed towards the town, blocking view upon the streets they walk upon, draining life out of every small fortresses of life. Every here and then a small puddle of them dispatched and moved towards a farmhouse or a barn, smelling, seeing, _feeling _any life and moving over it. Every house was surrounded by them for few moments. After these seconds, minutes, hours, years- it didn't matter how long they took. Everytime was the pile of brown matter a little bigger, linger or thicker then before. So this huge stream continued on the huge speedway, stretching the numbers and length into the unknown. His brain insisted that this huge stream would reach around the globe, to the moon and even into infinity. But he knew better.

60 thousand people killed by the experiment of one man. And it wouldn't end like this. IF, yes only IF they all marched towards Middleton, and not to other cities, mankind had a chance. A small, almost invisible chance. If they couldn't end it here mankind would be extinguished. Sure there would be small groups who somewhat survived it. Nomads in the Sahara, researchers in the antarctis, remote living people in Australia, or even only by blowing up all bridges that lead to manhattan. Mankind always found a way to survive and regrow.

_Not this time. What shall their life look like? They won't be able to settle down and build fully autharc cities. All the knowledge about technology will go down among us and withit the only tool we have to survive. Or would there REALLY be someone who knew how to hunt deers in the woods with a spear like a caveman? No surely not. Nowadays we go to the mall and buy our food. We don't catch it ourselves._

_But they do. And they're damn good at it._

"Hey you!"A voice interrupted his thoughts. But before he could open his mouth Ratting took the talk.

"What is it?"

"Some of my workers have a fight! Some say the dead would come to kill us and the others say that is crap! Please keep 'em from fighting!"

"Sure thing pass me the megaphone."

Ratting took it and spoke to all the workers. It was a huge pile of some dozens. Split in two groups who were shortly before going wild.

"EY LISTEN UP!" His voice was very loud through the megaphone, as intended. Everyone looked up to him. "I'm from Upperton and all those people you see over the fence are dead. But still walking. They're fucking zombies!"

"No way!" One shouted through the mass.

"Why else would I get a gun huh?"

They looked at the man ratting was. Indeed a Firefighter uniform with a pice ritten out, several scorchmarks and bloodstains doesn't look trusty.

"So you folks can either help us in keeping them dead and us alive or you can run home to your mumma's and cry!"

This made the crowd look angry at him. As intended.

"Everyone who has a gun at home is gonna get it and comes back double-quick, the rest snatches shovels, jackhammers, bolters and other killing-stuff and comes up here!"

"Dan's a Zombie already!" Someone shouted. The crowd turned towards the voice and a tied up worker who looked rather pale. After that said man raised his spate and hammered upon the "Zombie" for five to six times. No one moved as a scull got bashed in.

"Yeah that's the drill! Give him!" Ratting cheered the man while he kept smashing the brain with his working-boots. When the man was finished he continued: "See that's the only way to deal with 'em! Now come up here and help us build trenches 'n barricades."

"We can use the cement-mixer and the lumberplates they gave us to install!"

"Yeah they aren't fitting anyway! Total waste!"

"Yaaaaaaaaay!" The entire crowd came to the oppinion Ratting wanted.

"That's right let's give 'em hell for trying to fuck with us! And anyone who has an idea ho to make these two buildings and the street between a fortress shall speak!"

"We can nail the windows with the lumber and cement the doors! And later we build a fucking wall between the houses!" Somone shouted.

"Great idea! We will try to keep off the undead for as long as we can so hurry up! Everyone without something to do comes twohundred meters infront of the warehouses and fights with us. The rest will barricade the street between the two warehouses and the houses themselves. James here (he waved his free arm to the surprised man) will teach you in. So say hello to james your commanding officer!"

"Hello James!" The crowd sounded like the cliche of an anonymous-alcoholics meeting.

"And do you have all the tools and material? I mean making a wall ain't easy..."

Their boss spoke through a second megaphone: "We will throw up our cars. Then we will nail them together with all the lumber-plates we have. After that the gaps between the cars will be filled with cement, making the whole thing stable. And in the end the wall is gonna be cemented to the two houses got it?"

"Yeah Boss!"

"Good now move on. I want this wall to be standing within two hours highest!"

No one moved.

"You all WILL get new cars, tripple pay for this month AND a medal!"

"YAAAAAAAYYY!" The crowd suddenly came to life as everyone seemed to be very busy with getting tooled up.

Mark, as his name-tag said, put his megaphone down and turned to Ratting and the still confused James. "Sorry but we will ceartainly need up to three hours or so to get a good wall online. It just takes its time, getting the cars here, throwing them over, nailing them-"

"It's okay. In fact we're happy to get a castle with much space inside. But you should focus on making one of the buildings safe before making that wall. They can simply walk around and if the doors don't stand tight... I suggest you just cement all ground-level doors and then make a ladder or two close to a safe window. I don't know if they can climb, but they surely won't get through cement-walls. At least as long as we keep the big ones afar..."

"The big ones?"

"Yeah 8 feet high and with sickle-claws longer then you that cut through tanks."

Mark gave the two a sceptical look.

"Why don't you ask the tank-commander that got his abrams sliced up? He should be among them."

"Okay stay cool but will we really need to fight?"

"Yeah give me about... 20 men and arm them with the best weapons you have."

"Yeah right a spate maybe?" Sarcasm was one of the things mark wasn't known for, but sometimes even he hit the bucket right.

Proctor, for a long time again, spoke: "No, torchlights."

"Yeah good idea proc! Why didn't say anything lately?" James asked.

"Mr. Danville alwas said: "If you don't have anything usefull to say, say nothing"."

They waited patiently while Mark got up two dozens of his strongest folks armed with torchlights (the ones that cut Steel with 1700 degrees like nothing) and told them to follow James. Then he got to his "folks" as he named them and began to give out orders.

James took his role as "commanding officer" and told his patchwork-squad: "You will stay between us, if any of them come to close we will retreat for a few meters and you will keep them busy while we take new firing-lines. Got it?"

"What is a firing-line?" One of the men asked, his face could not be seen through the huge protection-mask.

"That is when we line up and combine our fire. That is the most effective way to keep them down."

"And why do we have to stand around and wait and don't get into hand-to-hand by ourselves?"

"If they follow us while we retreat we're meat. We always must keep a distance of about 40 meters to them. And we must keep em from the building-site. If a few break through that's not a problem, but it they are more then six it is. And if they team up on you even Chuck Norris gets killed."

That produced a lot of ooooos and aaaaas

"So we are there to kill em if they get to close?"

"Yep."

"And what if they are way too many to keep off?"

"I hope that we can retreat into safe buildings then."

Silence.

"Anyway folks let's move."

They ran back to the street, the building compound wasn't far away. Ceartainly only a few hundred meters. If they needed something they could easily get it fast enough.

"Man," james spoke to Ratting while running, "I can't believe it dude."

"What, that we have a bunch of fanatic construction people who make this town a fortress if given enough time?"

"Yeah that too, but isn't it a bit strange that an Insurance-company wants a building here?"

"That wasn't funny james."

"Oh." The smile faded.

They took positions, in front of the warehouse-district was free flat country for at least 500 meters. Then came the speedway. Beeing one of the flat sort, it allowed total overview. The most undead were in that mainstream upon the speedway. Some others moved in small groups or alone over the fields or on smaller parallel streets. But most of these streets connected together in a crossing. Having five street-lanes on both sides made the Upperton-Middleton not very huge. But the mass of bodies that flowed on it was. Middleton had been build on a hill, or at least that old part of town they were in at that moment, so the undead would have to move upwards. As they marched the 500 meters (or about 1500 feet) the view changed. Everyone was rather quiet.

At the beginning James still could see the entire stream of undead, sometimes thinner, on other times filling the entire speedway. The fact that the undead hadn't directly followed them as they (him, ratting, proctor, chief, the two raiders) had drove out of Upperton. Seeing the outnumbering size of the stream and the fact they had walked a couple of hours, maybe even a half day, made him believe something:

The entire population of Upperton was dead. Every woman, child and man was walking towards Middleton. Or other towns. At least James hoped that these were all of them. But he wasn't sure. He had seen pictures and movies of refugees of 'nam and ww2. _Those had been freaking many. But these are even more! _Were his thoughts as he started to dig himself a small hole in the snow beside the driveway.

_Man if Max would be here, he would know what to do in this moment. He had been the expert for warfare and especially in snowy areas. _He still hoped that his friend would have made it out. Even against better knowledge. _I hope he isn't among that stream. _

He looked at the burning scyscrapers of Upperton, barely seeable as thin dots in the horizon, and the stream that came from them.

_Necropolis... that's what Max had called Upperton. A "Nekropole"...he told me what that meant I just can't remember..._


	21. Shego, her past, and death

_Maybe I should go and search for Drakken. Ahhh no not yet. Its still so nicely warm._

Shego dove her body a bit deeper into the warm water. It was filled with shampoos of different sorts and a mild aroma thingy. Said thingy was small, circular and was dissolving into very many small bubbles who climbed up her back while she just lay there.

"Hmmmmmm that's good." Every small bubble that moved along her body eased the tension inside her. And her muscles. She loved bathing. Not just because it was very relaxing. It also made her forget her bad past with her mom who always made her work her ass off. Me-go and We-go (the one an egoist the other could split up in two beeings) who never gave her credit for the hard attempts to keep the family from falling apart. And the two hyperactive twins for which she was a better mother then her mom. No one ever gave her credit. Until she left and became a thief, money had been her credit, her reward. Finally someone paid attention to her skills and for that she was there at all. But that wasn't the thrill. After a few times it got boring. And money didn't replace someone to talk to. Someone who would say things like: "How's it been today?" or "Nice to have you back." instead of "Did you clean up my pants?" and "Where is my lunch?".

Then Drakken had come into her life. At first she wanted to backstab him and the pay was the only thing that kept her from that. But after her first robberys (which had been very exciting compared to the lousy harmless thefts she had done before) she had noticed a difference. _Ohhh I still remember the first time I came back with one of his stupid science-thingys. _What he had said that day was what triggered something inside her. _"Ahhh excellent work shego! When I... we took over the world you shall have at least the half of it. Or we can reign together... If you would want that. Great work Shego I am proud of you!" _After having said that and taking the device from her the blue man had left. But not for long. He never left her for long.

What had surprised her that day had been: Admiration. Thankfullness. Someone showed that he was happy when she did something. And even when she was just there. She let herself slide a bit deeper into the foam.

_Ummmm so good. And what had happened the second time? Oh yeah the princess came up. His own "invention"_ _collapsed among the building and I had to shove him out of the ruins. That had been a painfull day. But somewhat nice too. How was that again..._

---

She stood before the burning remains of their first lair (not the one on the haunted island) and hid from the upcoming police, carrying the knocked out doctor with her. "Assistent oh yeah! (she sighed and put him down behind a bush) I should be in charge." After that she kept waiting while patting her feet. Patt-Patt-Patt. Again he didn't move. Patt-Patt. Nothing again. She shouted at the man: "Urrrgh if you don't wake up now I'm gonna run off and leave you here!" But nothing happened.

"Pfff fine get a new 'assistent'!" And with that she stomped off, unnerved. But a bit slower then she wanted to. And she even looked over her shoulder many times to check on him. And she looked around for cops way too often. And listened for sirens a bit longer then necessary.

She sighed and her shoulders slumped down among her head. _Why am I doing this? I should just run away. There are enough people who want to employ me. _But the fact was: She knew none of these people. And she also didn't know where they were and didn't have any money among her. So she had been lost without Drakken. _Fine. Please. But I'm not gonna beg him or something. He should be happy that I stick with him. No: That I HAVE to stick with him. Maybe for a weak or so. And then I'm gonna leave. _

Drakkens voice came from somewhere behind her: A long moan and then words: "Shego? Are you there? I need help..." and he collapsed into a trash-can before finishing the sentence.

"Doctor D? Wait I'm coming!" She ran to his prison and pulled him out with an old burger-packing that 'decorated' his head.

She smiled sinister: "Nice hat Doc I didn't know you prepared yourself for Halloween." _Come on pick the fight I wanna see you angry._

But no angry remark or order came. Instead he pulled off the packing and wanked around like asleep or drunk. His usual hair and a bit of red were seen. "Uhhhhh I think I should...desinfect that..." and fell again, but this time Shego picked him up and supported him.

"Where were you? I was worried... cops you know..." _Worried? He...missed me? _

"I...errrm... was looking for... medicine!" _Why do I lie to him?... I better treat wound at his head...No I should just leave. Oh I see he needs my help. But I could just call the ambulance. No they would arrest him... _Angry at her inability to just leave him she eyed him deeper. _He almost looks like a puppie just now. Fine. Please. I'll drop him somewhere and then I'll leave him. It was boring with him anyway._

"Oh yeah... Medicine. I have a room in a motel nearby where we can get your wounds treated and lay low... uuuuuuh."

"Hang on doc just tell me where." After this Shego walked him to the said motel, a shady and lonesome place. For the first time she didn't feel disappointed because of helping someone. Drakken rested on a couch in his room and she looked for medicine in the bathroom. Luckily, there had been some. While coming back to Drakken, who clutched one gloved hand at his head, she spoke: "What do you mean with MY wounds? You're the only one injured."

"No... the back of your right shoulder looks bad. Might already have an infection... uhhh."

She frowned and looked. He was right. "I didn't feel that how-"

"Blood-poisoning: you won't get far without proper treatment." _Oh yeah sure lame excuse to make me stay over night, moron. _At first Shego had believed that he would be one the many men who wanted to hit on her. But that impression turned to the opposite. He respected not only her skills.

_He also respects my privacy. _She smiled a bit at that thought and made herself more comfy in the bath-tube.

"If you let me treat that... I mean if..errm. If that's not too much against your privacy and...ummmm-"

"Don't sweat it your wound first."

"No I insist on-"

"NO Drakken I insist on something else!" _Something else I like about him. He listens to me. At least when I'm not mocking him. _

Grumbling the doctor turned around to give her a better view of his head. She put a bit of the desinfecting ointment into her hand and rubbed it on his injury. He squelched and she put her hand back. "HARR this burns. Umm but no matter how much I resist keep on okay?"

"Fine doc." So she continued. He bit his teeth to not scream and she pressed a bit harder only to see him wave his arms around. It looked funny to her. One plaster later the doc went back to talking: "Now to your wound." She shuffled a bit at that comment. "I mean you don't have to take your suit of or something!" He quickly added. Men touching her wasn't the most common thing to her. But she obeyed and turned around. And shuddered a bit when the burning ointment came. But he carefully massaged into her back so it didn't hurt much. _It even felt nice...somehow. That's how I came to like massages at all.  
_

When he was finished with the plaster she got up and moved to the door. But the door was just near the entrance to the bedroom.

"Umm you can have the bedroom Shego. I mean if you want to stay. I could umm (he cramed up a few dollars from his pockets) buy you another room!"

She didn't turn around._Don't look don't look don't look _Until he interrupted her sentence with one almost magical sentence:

"Umm Shego-?"

She turned around to face him _Oh great now he DID make me turn. You mean little trickster_-

"-thank you for not leaving me behind... I mean that no one has ever cared for me except my mom and... I just wanted to say thank you before you leave. I had hoped you would stay but... I mean you saw clearly that I'm a loser and just slow you down and...stuff." _Does he look sad? Yes he does. Almost like a puppy. Wait no don't hink of cute litlle helpless- Oh great. He did it again._

She frowned. "I'm not leaving. Just always knock and never come into my rooms okay?"

A smile crept up his face: "Of course Shego! And when you feel better we shall attempt world domination once again!"

"Whatever just don't bore me." Was the answer when she smashed the door, trying to look pissed. But in thruth she smiled as she went to bed. A nice warmth had spread out not only on the injured back of hers when she had fallen asleep.

_-->_

_Okay fine I'll go and find him. Just five more minutes. _She looked around and saw a small botlle of shampoo with a red ribbon around it. She took it and read a small car that glued on the kitshy ribbon. It said:

" Dear Shego: Happy Annual-day! Remember? Six years ago we met and I just wanted to say thank you again for the positive turning you gave my life back then and still give. I would not have continued to conquer the world if you wouldn't have come. I know we fight often and I boss you around much. I'm working on that and I'll try to not piss you off so much. And could you please tell me when your birthday is? I still don't know. Yours in Evil: Drew Lipsky aka Doctor Drakken."

She sighed. "Ohhh...that's just... too nice from him... " Whie smiling warmly she got out of the water and put her new clothes on. Then she marched past a henchmen and told him: "If Drakken comes here without me tell him that I'm searching him and that he shall phone me."

The henchman, surprised on the fact Shego had talked to him with respect and without ANY mocking or sarcastic comment, looked at her quizically. And Shego smiling was indeed a rather rare sight too.

_He still does it the old trickster. _Roaring the engine of the hovercar came to life. _He still makes me know he needs me. And that he appreciates me and my work. That somehow makes it all worth. Even losing everytime. And his childishness. And... everything._

She drove with high speed through the dawning day towards the signal Drakken's beeper made. Soon she was at a house that looked rather mangled. It's front-door was kicked to shreds. After turning off the engine she entered the house and noticed that it was empty. But the signal was there. So Drakken had to be there too. At least did she believe that until she saw Drakkens old jeans lying on the ground of the parents sleeping room. And the jeans had the beeper inside them.

"Oh great that moron." While going down the stairs she noticed a note lying on the kitchentable. _Oh yeah just the same hung above the broken door. _

It said: "Dear Bonnie: We are at a place named "Drakken's Lair" A man named Drakken is among me and had that idea. If you don't know where that is I have set up a map in my working-room. Just look at the console and take one of the printed copies that lie around there. And I'm sorry that I can't supply you with weapons to defend yourself with. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at the videos. With love: Dad."

"Strange I haven't met any cars on my way out. Weird. But at least I don't need a map to find "Drakken's lair". Hell I live there!" So the pissed off shego went back to her car only to see some moron touching it and mourning weird. She gave him a fat kick to the jaw and sped back to her home. After about ten minutes she was at the site.

"Ahh that sportscar must be their ride. What is that? (she narrowed her eyes a bit) knives? Stuck within the roof? Weird. And why is the door open? I'll give the henchmen hell of a speech for that."

Her hovercar stopped a few meters from the front entrance. "Strange all the tools lying around. Like as if someone would have searched for something. Well I'll just get through the door and see -"

Ronald Stoppable came through it, ignorant to her. _Ahh this could be fun_

_--- _

Ron turned and held his rifle towards one of the henchmen who ran after him. He aimed his shotgun and pulled the trigger.

Tfwammmm and the man's head split into splattering pieces of meat. Another henchman ran through the door swinging a huge crowbar at him. But another loud

Tfbammmm made him fall behind without both a head and a torso. _them or me them or me_

Number three got out and received just same punishement after Ron ejected the used shell. It felt good, almost righteous as the shaft slammed into his shoulder when it fired another deadly messenger at number four, who came out too. He ejected another shell and was ready to fire when he spotted Shego just standing there, stunned for the mere second he had needed to end four lives. _She'll get at me when I'm done with these lackeys. Remember the training remember the training _Again the metalmade deathbringer spat out another steam of death at an undead henchman and an empty shell to Shegos feet. More persons came out of the door. This time no henchmen. It was Henry, still clad in his blue-battledress and holding his m4 to the door while running backwards. After that came Lonnie, Connie, and Helen. At last, Drakken came out.

---

Shego was no longer surprised and ready to attack Ron when Drakken came out, holding a pistol in his hands and aiming at something behind the door. He fired thrice and sickening sounds proved point-blanc hits.

"To the car!" The blue-clad commando shouted while shooting into the room through the door that was no longer blocked by Drakken. Someone screamed as loud as a man could: "FOOD!"

"You are going no-where buffoon!" _I hope he's angry at that. I love to mock people. _But nothing came as reaction.

Except that Drakken shouted over the noise of a firing assaultrifle: "The place is gonna self-destruct! Run!"

And fired another two rounds at something inside the lair. Shego couldn't believe her eyes to see Drakken like this. _He looks so... determined and unstoppable. And why isn'i he fighting with the buffoon? He looks quite serious too. And what the hell are they shooting at? I'll look. _She jumped over their heads, making a salto in the air and noticed that the commando had to reload. Drakken spotted her shortly before she reached the door, but couldn't react in time. Her eyes widened at the sight.

Whatever this man had been before was barely recognisable. It seemed to be the henchman she had talked to. A skinny and longgrown man. A 2 meter long tentacle that ended into a huge claw rose out of the left face of the "man" Also his arm was a gruesome-looking sichel-blade as long as a man himself. And on the back seemed to grow a small skorpion-tale. It grew before her eyes, and in merely a half second had doubled its size. Both legs were replaced by four spider-like legs that went upwards from the body to knack in a 90-degrees angle into crow-clawed "feet". The other arm seemed to be a huge barrel that went through its shoulder, making it look like a very big bio-cannon. It began to glow at the inside. And the huge tentacle-clawthing reshaped into a meterlong swordtipped blade that crashed down to her. She wanted to jump behind but knew she would be too slow.

Everything passed through her mind again. The day she had met Drakken, the day she had a massive fight with him and apologized, the moment when she had a funny water fight with him after they had accidently fallen into a lake. But one thing bothered her: _I want to tell Drakken-_

"Master, Master, where's the dream that I've been after?"_  
_

A hand smashed onto her shoulder, throwing her forward. She felt the mass of a foreign body and the huge blade that stroke through the air just where her head was before. Two loud bangs erupted abover her other shoulder. And the blade didn't hit her but something else.

---

Ron watched the girl named Lonnie beeing cut intwo, her head and upper body beeing seperated from the rest by the blade that seemed to glide through the concrete. Connie, who hadn't watched moved to the "Hovercar" that some far, far away voice mentioned in the same moment. Everything inside him stopped suddenly. Even his heart gave out. But it regained its knocking as if mocking his thoughts.

"Master, Master you only promised lies"

Lonnie Rockwaller, the girl he had fallen in love with was dead. The girl that somewhat liked him (even more than Kim) had stopped to exist just a few minutes after he had met her. He knew she somehow loved him, there had been signals. He wasn't sure about girls and about how to interpret their words and behaviour, but that had been clear.

One of these signals was that she somewhat threw him to the ground before the blade had come.

Drakken came out of the building while towing Shego among by grasping one of her hands. But Ron didn't care. He also didn't care that he was pulled somewhere by some unknown force. Appearently that force felt like a hand, if he still felt it right. What he doubted very much. And said force wanted him to somehow live on. If he could manage that. He felt like if his heart would have been ripped out by that blade without killing him. Like as if a sadistic man would draw pleasure from his suffering.

"Laughter, Laughter all I see or hear is laughter"

He had told her about Kim on their ride to the lair, she had been very understanding. Maybe that would explain why he had heard her voice say one thing before he impacted the ground: "Be happy with her"

---

Shego suddenly sat on the drivers chair, Drakken beside her, and turned on the engine. She couldn't think in that moment she just did it like she had done it many times before. And she was ready to drive but Drakken held her shoulder. Somehow that gesture indicated _Wait_. A loud sound came to her ears while she turned and saw a gigantic blue beam cut through the massive lairs wall. It was about of 3 meters high and bride, and it flew into town mocking the miles they away from the cities core. And a figure disappered in the beam.

---

Henry's wife died in the massive outburst of bioelectrical whatever that fueled the huge beam. Right before his hands. He couldn't believe that she would be there no more. He had planned to live with her again even though they were divorced. He knew she would have accepted him again if he would have turned his back on work and live for the family.

"Laughter, Laughter, laughing at my cries"

But no more. Never again would he feel her arms around him. Never again. His past was spoiled, his future lay in scatters and the present was crap anyway. And the blue beam that seperated him from the vehicle thinned and died down, showing the huge thing as it packed the molten wall and stood inside the hole, screaming for food again.

Like a machine, filled with nothing but impulses he rose his rifle and fired the underslung grenade-launcher. A huge bang erupted and the creature was flooded with napalm, burning but not yet killing it. However he ran for the car.

It's huge tentacle came for him but he rolled underneath it. A second stroke from its 5 meterlong tale missed becaue he ducked and ran on. As soon as he jumped onboard the hover-device the green-blackclad woman turned the ignition and drove on, narrowly evading another strike from the burning creature only by speed. A look at the timer built into his clock showed 00:01 seconds remaining until destruction. A gigantic fireball enlightened the night together with one scream. And as he saw the entire town beeing enlightened by the huge flame the creatures scream echoed inside him.

_Yeah we're nothing else than that anymore:_

"Food"


	22. Schools out forever

Bonnie had a question: "So what do we do now?"

"We should get my family somewhere safe, I guess. We've got weapons enough now."

"Later we should go to the next mpd-station and wait there."

"Good plan dude!" OD agreed.

"Hello? New clothes? The slime tickles on my skin and I'm freezing!" Bonnie was pissed. She didn't want to freeze and shiver all the time and she was tired. "You can have some from my dad and my collection. But only cause this is-"

Tara interrupted: "Drastic."

"Yes. And stop looking at my legs OD!"

"Bonnie shut up!"

She grunted and crossed her arms while falling deeper into the seat. _Oh great could we finally move? _Derrick drove faster and ignored traffic lights. Only when no other cars were there. And that was often the case. _I wonder if dad is fine. He called earlier and said he'd have to tell us important things. I'm so happy he's back. Even just for a few days! _She looked around: Od was fummeling around at his rifle and Tara got and explanation about how to shoot and reload by Derrick, who could drive and onehanded fummel at the gun.

"You put out the old stripe like this (he took the stripe away from the mac10) and then you put in the new one. Do you see that small round knop on the top?"

"I have to pull that one behind and forth right?"

"Yes to get old rounds out and the new one into the chamber."

"And to get the bolt back?"

"Yes. Now reload yourself."

"Okay." Tara performed the reloading sequence in under five seconds, which is amazing since she had to put the old clip to the cupboard. And since it has been the first time she had a firearm in her hands at all.

"Impressive lady. Od still can't get his gun loaded in under 7 seconds."

She giggled a bit: "It's impressive that you can easily drive and explain stuff like that."

"Ey dawg I can reload my gun!"

Everyone looked at him and Bonnie spoke: "Isn't it a bit strange to giggle about guns? I mean they're all loud and stuff. And they're only made to kill people after all!"

"Yeah" Derrick replied, "But if the marksman is aware of the huge responsibility a such weapon gives and is mature enough: no problem."

Bonnie again: "Not like this moron here!" She shoved the barrel of the rifle aside and hit OD's head with it. "Ouh what was that for bitch?"

"NEVER again call ME a bitch or I'll shove it up your ass sideways AND you had the end of it pointing at my head while playing with your toy!"

Od, visibly taken aback by that harsh saying took the rifle to the windowside and looked at it with more caution: "That's not an insult you know... just... normal talking 'kay?"

She simply sighed and rolled her eyes. Derrick and Tara exchanged desperate looks as he put in a faster gear.

"Anyway Miss Bonnie you should learn how to handle a weapon too. I suggest the two sawed-off shotguns."

"Oh I'm getting the low-tech crap again huh?"

"You can have my rifle if you want." Od suggested but only received a raised eyebrow as answer. _Me and that huge bulky loud thing?_

"Or not." _Yeah right back off and take your idiotic toy among._

"Okay fine give me these stupid thingys. I'll learn how to handle em when I'm at home."

"There isn't much to learn about. Never pull the trigger twice. The recoil will be too stron to handle, and the weapon might explode. And to reload you must clap it open, take the old shells out and the new ones in. They will stick just fine, you will notice when they are safely in their designated position. But be carefull the Shotguns don't have safeties!"

"Safeties?"

Tara answered: "That's what keeps you from blasting someone by accident. It blocks the trigger. But those don't have something like that."

"Aha. Hey look!" She pointed to the frontwindow. Everyone looked.

---

Their Willy jeep had seen much action. Richard Stoppable stood behind the .50 machinegun and kept a good look at everything. He hadn't worn his brown-green uniform in over 50 years but it felt really good. No not good, known. And he spotted something. A car behind them. He looked sharp to see a dark-skinned driver and- "Green? Why the hell is their entire car screamingly bright green?"

"What's the matter Rich?" Paul asked, one of his three friends.

"A car. Survivors." He waved them to drive to a green side of the street. A Willys jeep with armed and re-activated GI's wasn't a familiar sight even in the gun-loving USA and they didn't wan't to block traffic. _Yeah right as if there'd be any. _Everyone looked at the car. "Goff drive to the right and stop!"

Goeffrey, called Goff, said: "Good idea, I need to take a whizz."

---

The man at the machinegun waved at them and bowed down to seemingly the driver.

"I think they want us to stop."

"Oh no don't tell me they've got marshall law out!" Od said, worriedly gripping his rifle harder.

"Marshall Law means that even morons like you are allowed to have guns at all!" Bonnie, beeing the "positive" person as always.

---

Goff moved the car to a green park-alley, stopped it with keeping the engine running and jumped out. Everyone else jumped to the cars sides. And the other car also stopped, only about 10 meters away. A man, clad in something that was covered in a green substance got out first. Then came a masked man and two young ladies. He waved them closer and knew they would try to hide their weapons.

"No need to hide that you're gunned! We won't control you or stuff. We just wanna talk."

"Okay" the man spoke who took out a mac10 "I just thought that the army uses more modern weaponry." Rich smiled: "What's wrong 'bout a good ol' tommygun?" And lifted his thompson mpi to shoulderheight.

They came closer and the speaker introduced them: "This here is Bonnie, Tara, Od, and myself, Derrick. Nice to meet you." The elder GI shook eveyone's hands with respect and warmth while holding his firearm lefthanded. "And I am Richard, call me Rich. The driver's not here yet but you'll meet him soon. Nice man. We call him Goff. Then there are (he waved at one man with a right-leg-protese) Paul, just called P and the other is Jack, only called J. We're old veterans and I saw... well..." he smirked and bit his lower lip.

"What mister?" Bonnie asked, with respect. She knew that veterans have to be talked to respectfully since they put their lives in danger for her safety. Barkin had always preached that in history lessons. And even Bonnie Rockwaller could be respectfull and/or nice.

"I saw the dead walking, lady. Believe me I saw it! And not only that, they were hungry! Also I saw skelletal thingys with sharp claws. Some of them had even been invisible!"

Od said with much skepsis: "Aha, Okay mister. And bunnies can fly."

"Od shut up. (Derrick turned back to the old but fit looking man) Sorry mister. We have been attacked by a huge spider-bug mix that ate up one of our friends. It's "blood" is this slime here."

Rich nodded, appearently believing their sayings.

"And could you please take these two ladies among? We have to get back to our ghetto and prepare our people for resistance."

"Okay. You can have the old car." Tara said. Bonnie looked shocked.

"WHAT? That's my car!"

"And what if you come home with a car that has its entire roof missing and a dying engine? AND green spider-blood?"

Bonnie sighed: "Okay Fine but I want it back! Rockwaller property!"

"Yes." Derrick nodded and returned to the car.

"No wait I have a better idea!" Rich spoke up, stopping the two men in their way. "You get these two ladies back to their houses and then we will meet in your ghetto. We will escort you back to their house!"

"Hey you won't just get us lost or something! We will fight too!" Tara stated, shocked from the upcoming plot.

"That's not what I mean. You really WON'T be able to fight with that clothing. You need something that keeps the cold away."

She blushed a bit: "Ohhh. Yes, sorry."

"Could we please NOW get away I'm freezing!" Bonnie as usual: Unnerving. And shuddering.

A new voice came from the open-roofed jeep's driver seat: "Mount up folks!"

And with that they drove to Bonnie's house. But after ten minutes a message came through the jeeps radio:

"Attention to all military and police-personal: SOS this a distress-call. Middleton high-school is under heavy attack from unknown forces. Heavy civilian casualties. We need immediate police and military backup. I say again: Middleton Highschool SOS we have high colletarel damage! Send backup immediatly!"

"Well Folks. You know the drill!"

Everyone replied in unison: "Lock and Load!"

"Willy" as the four veterans called their jeep sped up and split from the other car, leaving the four non-military people to drive home themselves. But Rich waved them to drive on and shouted over the street, so there would be no misunderstandings. After about six minutes they entered the yard of "mhs" (the school) and stopped. Everywhere lay corpses. Most of them had head-wounds. A few tables lay sideways in front of the door. "Hmm" Rich hummed.

"Looks like a destroyed barrier to me." P said while starting to get out of the vehicle.

"No way P you'll stay at the fifty."

P grumbled, but accepted his boss's order. He knew his leg protese would only slow them down. And someone had to watch the car. Goff was just about to kill the engine when Rich packed his arm and shook his head. "We might have to disembark quickly. Whatever killed these people still must be close. Folks: Triangle!"

All three of them sprinted towards the door, readiying their arms. J had an M1 carbine, the version with a 15-rounds clip, Rich his trusted Thompson Mpi and Goff carried his K98, an old german bolt-action rifle. As they passed the 60 meters to the front door they saw even more bodies. Most of them had gun-wounds, some even missed their heads. Bad memories, banished to forgetting for decades came back to their minds. While fighting against their own demons they proceeded to the door and took their usual formation. Rich with his quick-firing weapon stood before the door, while J leaned against the side to quickly shoot at whatever posed a threat inside. Goff, having the precise long-range weapon, took place kneeling on the stairs behind Rich, ready to shoot past him. Then he opened the door and saw a machinegunner resting behind an overthrown table. All his memories vanished except one:

Richard was scared as hell, alone and had crapped his pants. Also he was deaf. But somehow he had made it to the trenches. He didn't know exactly but appearently he was the only one still alive of his entire squad. Because he had blacked out and had been mistoken as dead. So he slowly wanked and yanked, while looking like a drunk, to the trenches. Nothing hit him, nothing was around him. But he saw one thing: Allies, friends. Even his old mate from the drilling-camp had been among them. And something else: The huge concrete-bunker had stopped firing, their staff was appearently retreating. But they had to move past a trench-corridor his mates controlled. Meaning: they would get shot when trying to run past. He also saw that one of the mg's was missing. The characteristic front-barrel did not show from the bunker' small firing outlet. His mate was waving at him. And the machinegunner, just the same who had shot his team in the merciless chess-game of war, rested the same machinegun on an ammunition-box. He felt his own hands gripping mechanically to his own mpi, giving a perfect aim at the man's head. He saw the helmet, the shoulderpieces of the grey uniform he had seen so often and how the man closed his left eye. But he didn't shoot. Somewhat hindered him. (Now he knows it was his belief that killing was wrong) And how the man started to shoot. How the grey-traced thin lightnings cut through the men. How one Gi tried to run but was shot in the back. How another tried to shoot back but was cut intwo, how they all died. And his drill-camp mate still had his arm in the same gesture, but his eyes had been empty.

Empty, never to be filled again.

He didn't blame the gunner, he had only done his job. He blamed the men who let that happen. Who gave the orders while sitting in comfortable chairs and drinking wine while thousands burned, froze, starvd or otherwise died by their decisions, decisions that were so far away from reality and human-goodwill as creating something that raised the dead. War was crap, and it will ever be.

>

The gunner tried to duck and hide everything of his body behind the lumber but Rich was too fast. His brain had already given the order to fire through the lumber at the place where the man would be. It would not make the same mistake twice. But it would make another. His instincts, normally a lifesaving thing, went wrong. But he realised that too late. His finger had pulled, the bolt had struck, the round had exited the weapon and had entered a body.

Dwunk made the thompson mpi , faintly the lumber send scatters around and made a dull thud and a muffled scream came. "Hahhhh!"  
And he heard the familiar sound of a body falling to the ground, hit and, most ceartainly, deadly wounded. Another voice came from a strong-looking man who hid behind a locker before the trained marksman could fire on him: "Ceise fire we're survivors! Civilians!"

But Rich's ears were deaf. Again. This time not from a grenade's shockwave. He quickly moved behind a trash-container made from plastic and kept aiming. At the same time Goff and J moved in and took cover behind a corpse, resting their rifles on its meat.

"Ceise fire we surrender!" The Man named Steve Barkin came out of his cover holding his hands up, the right loosily clutching a Colt 1911. He dropped the weapon, ran to the fallen machinegunner and bent down, merely his head was visible. Rich ran to the badly made barricade and jumped over it, leaving the 20-somewhat meters behind himself in only three and a half seconds. His friend J was already running after him while Goff kept giving cover for any enemy that could show up.

"You idiot! (caugh) You lured them here! They had finally lost our trace!" Was everything the machinegunner gave as answer to the man who held the thompson towards the fallen's head. Rich wouldn't like to admit it but his mind had tricked him: _This... this... is no nazi machinegunner... no grey uniform...no helmet... and that's not a 42 standing there... oh god it's just a kid! I...shot a teenager!  
_

"MEDIC!" He shouted, dropping his gun and bending down to the wounded teenager. The brown suit wearing and somehow soldierlike looking teacher was already busy with opening the blue jeans jacket. Steps, now also from Goff running and readiying his medic-bag came through the entry-corridor of Middleton high-school.

"I... I'm sorry I thought-"

"Shut up and get ready they're coming!" The young man, heavily breathing, grit his teeth and screamed after saying that.

"Who?" J was at the site and wanted to know that one essential thing.

The teacher, while looking down at the spreading blood-spill on the screaming teenagers chest, spoke: "The living dead."

---

P was bored out of his mind. He had heard a shot and all the adrenaline, the distrusting awareness had come back. With the machinegun ready to fire and aiming into nowhere he cursed: "Yeah right as if these corpses would just start to walk." and relaxed a bit, letting his left arm rest on the shoulderpiece. Then his look sharpened as a small noise came to his attention, and he turned around. "Hey girl what are you doing here it's dan- oh shit."

The girl missed half of her left shoulder and the other arm gripped his protese. She pulled at the unbelieving man's leg and kept doing so until he aimed his weapon at her head. "Oh not that way old yeller!" One fourth of the corpses stood up and started to make its way towards him. He fired the girls head off and turned around to face the biggest group of them.

---

A group of students had come to watch what had happened and just stood there. Before them were four GI's who could have just jumped out of a museums view-cage, Mr Barkin and a bleeding teenager on the ground. Said teacher looked and shouted at those who simply stood there, paralized and curious. "Get the first-aid box from the nurses office now!" One of the students was appearently not totally engulfed by the sight and ran through the door, letting it close itself.

Machinegunfire could be heard: "badadadadadadada...badada...badadadad...badadadadadadadadadadada" It's slow ticking, almost comparable to the one of a clock, filled the hallway even through the closed door.

Rich knew that his friend was in danger since he fired uncontrolled full-auto but his mind still refused the thought: "The dead walk."

---

He fired into them, but nothing happened. Sure, they stumbled back. Sure, they were ritten to pieces by the heavy .50 rounds. Sure, they kept lying on the ground when he hit them, at least the most. But more came. He was encircled and the circle came closer. Over the small aiming half-circle he looked at the man's face. And fired. It vanished into crimson sprays of red fluid and skin. Then he aimed at another

He mowed into the group and surely took down at least 20 of them. But then someone packed his protese and pulled very strong.

"Doctor, I told you this protese will not hold against strong pullings!"

"Yes, but I am sorry your veteran's insurance doesn't cover the newest models."

"Oh great shall I just say: "Sorry for having been in Omaha" when my leg sticks in the sewer-gully again?"

>

_Oh Fuck- _the protese rit intwo and he fell, taking the machinegun from its holding. _Oh If die I'll take you all with to the grave... _And he pulled a grenade from his belt, among the pin and his pistol. Someone was about to bite in his neck and the hands, who kept pressing him into ground face-first, became more. _I won't come back, no not me! _He pulled another pin, and right as he felt teeth press on his neck when he put the colt into his mouth, did he close his eyes and pulled.

---

"Tuffwummm" Rich knew that sound. And what it had to mean. "Everyone take defensive-"

"TRUMMMMMM-" A shockwave went through them, faint and distant, not doing anything bad but signalising problems. Even without having said or seen anything (the door had been closed) he knew that his friend was no longer there. And whatever had made him fire came to them. If not at that moment, then later. He knew it would be a hard fight if one .50 couldn't keep them off. But nothing came. Skeptical looks were shared among his men while Guff and the teacher tried to stop the bleeding. Still, like a monument of salvation, lay the 1911 colt pistol on the ground. Whisper filled the hall: "Skalpell:" A small sound indicated the release of said instrument from the now opened medic's bag Guff had among himself. "Nippers." Once again Steve Barkin reached the small thing into Guff's hand who continued to get the bullet out of the finally unconscious machinegunner. Barkin gave a short look over his shoulder to the backdoor that led to the cafeteria. Inside were all the pupils he had managed to get to relative safety by using the p.a. system. "It is almost cynic that those who always came to late or didn't take hours are dead and not just in detention. A strange way how fate punishs them." Guff only nodded.

"So?" Rich asked while looking over his shoulder.

"Seems to got stuck in the ribcage. I'm trying to get it out."

"And?" Barkin asked, not sounding worried. He had been used to this in 'nam so he would be used to this here too.

"Medical stuff takes time. Rich go look if these people are coming in."

"These people?"

Guff sighed loudly and tilted his head backwards, which made his helmet fall down and make a "clang". "The dead who killed P maybe?"

"Oh, yeah."

Barkin and Rich moved to the door. Slowly. Rich had given Mr.B his colt back. As they stood at the door both put their ears to it and closed their eyes. _Something's coming, something's coming I almost hear it... ahhh there it is._

"Uhhhhhhhmmmgggggggahl" _A moan? That's weird. _He opened his eyes and saw Barkin making a frown before opening his own eyes and starting to whisper: "We must fight through them. The bus-compound is at the other side of school near the entrance to building B. Maybe there are still other survivors inside that compound. I haven't been at the gym either."

"We should get that wounded one to the others. If we don't make it to fight through he can sneak around them with the left survivors. Now let's get back." Barkin nodded and they got back, carefull enough to not make any noise that could have given away their position. Guff was just about to get the gunner into the rautik-grip (a way to move people by shoving them on the ground and resting them on one's knees while slowly stepping backwards) when J took the legs and they moved him through the door. And rested him on a chair, leaving the right arm on a table so he wouldn't fall down. Rich spoke to Gunn: "You should take the machinegun, your carbine won't help much." Gunn was about to protest, but then he sensed it could be cool to auto-fire a bit instead of always aiming so much. And he saw the neccessity of that order. So he dropped the carbine and his fifteen five-round stripes on the table, near the wounded's arm. Everything was watched by the very curious students. A few came closer to look at who they brought in.

"Are you sure that teen can handle the gun?" Guff, not just the driver, but also the medic, asked.

Barkin answered: "I saw him cut down Undead in masses before pushing back. And even then he did it without letting anyone close to the door. If he wouldn't have fought to give me time these people here wouldn't be alive." A few pupils backed off at that comment and looked at the unconscious gunner skepticly. "He more looks like a drinker to me." One whispered to the other.

Barkin noticed that and an idea formed in his mind. Rich and him stepped on a table so that everyone of the maybe hundred students who filled the huge room could see and hear him clearly. Then he spoke:

"Okay listen up." After seeing everyone listened: "There will be gunfire soon. That means you will wait here for ten minutes after the beginning of the firefight. Block the cafeteria door with tables, and only open when someone says the password "Nightingale". When the ten minutes are over, and no one of us is back, you all will run to the bus-compound through that side-door. I will organize you all into 30-person-groups and give out keys to always two persons. If anyone of you witnesses that one of these keyholders is dead or otherwise not able to move you must take the keys and run to the respective busses. Once you are there, you all will wait for the key-holders to open the busses. As soon as everyone is inside these busses you all will drive to the mpd-station. Do you all know where that is?"

Everyone nodded.

"Good Everyone who has a drivers license comes to me now. The rest will organize in groups of 30 people. Do it now!"

Everyone started to talk, some people chatted but the most sorted in groups. Not very well, but they did. Meanwhile Mr. Barkin got an old broom and set himself on a bench. About of 16 people moved around him and listened. "Okay now a bus is not very different from a car. The pedals are at the same positions, and the gear is a bit further away and a bit harder to move. Now this broom represents the gear. You step on the middle pedal and move the gear SLOWLY. Now look:" He pretended to kick a pedal and moved the broom (which he had to hold in his hand since it wasn't attached to something) slowly forward, and then to the left.

"Okay now I'll give out the keys. The most important thing is: In a bus you have a radio. You use it like this: " He took an imaginary radio into his hand and pushed, very obviously so that everyone got it, a button. After that he said: "Bus number TWO moving out of compound." While pressing the "button" again and putting the "radio" back he stood up and told them something else: "Bus number one drives out of the compound first. BUT bus number one has to say that before he does. Means: YOU will have to say that before you drive out of compound. And you ALWAYS have to say a) your bus-number loud and clearly and then b) what you do or what your problem is. If for example your bus has an engine failure during the drive you must radio the others that they should pick up your passengers. And: If Bus number three doesn't drive and your number four, Radio that he shall radio that he drives. If he doesn't for a time, radio that you drive after solving the problem and that the others shall drive on."

Everyone nodded. "Any questions?"

"What is when our driver doesn't come?"

"Then you must go infront of other busses who haven't driven yet and wave at them to wait. Then you get into that bus: Believe me a Bus CAN fit for 60 persons even if it's not gonna be comfy."

"Shouldn't we rather stay here?"

"No, these 'undead' will come to us very soon. And if it IS as bad as that young man there (he points at the unconscious gunner) told me it's not safe unless inside of heavily guarded areas like military installations or policestations."_ And even they are not really safe. Hell if this town doesn't know what happened here... _Barkin kept thinking: _And if they are coming from Upperton... Oh boy..._

He looked at the pupils. Appearently they had organised, sensing that this would be an important matter. He only had to make small refittings. Then he realised that he didn't _have _the keys.

---

Rich felt not good. One man killed, the car destroyed and they didn't have infinite ammo. But, he would fight if he could save lives. But one thing bothered him: He forgot something. He truly felt like he would simply let something out. The doors? Barricaded. Defenses? Set. He kept on musing while that teacher briefed the pupils about how ti drive and what to do. _Yes! That's it. I forgot to ask the man for his name! No that wasn't so important...the corpse in the entrancehall. If that one does rise again! _With loud steps Rich ran through the door, past the guarding Goff and jumped over the tables like a marathonrunner in olympia and knelt down before the dead person. A schoolgirl, clad in a dark-blue blazer and with a pale face. He carefull touched her with the left hand while still holding his hand at her body. _Yes she's turning...slowly...slowly...are there you go-oh._

The girls other head-half was missing, and the entire brain among the halfed face hang at the door. _Strange I haven't seen that when we we entered. Must be carefull, I'm getting sloppy on my old days. Oh-_

The window inside the double-winged wooden door didn't have blood on it. There would have been at least small traces and streaks of it if someone would have tried to wipe it away. _Yeah the angle of blood-splatter is logical. Even though I don't know the exact detail I'd say that the bullethole must be somewhere above eyehight. Ah there it is. _But he was surprised that the body hadn't flown backwards and lay with it's head towards the door. Also it's arms were stretched out towards the right wall. _Hmmm just one hole. Good shot. Not every civilian can do a header on a moving target on 25 meters with only one round. Even with resting the rifle upon a table it requires at least minimal practical knowledge. I still wonder what I forgot. _His thoughts were quickly interrupted by Barkin speaking to him:

"I don't have the keys. But I know where they are. And I'm gonna need and escort."

"Aha okay I'm coming along."

---

"Just great just when I need Wade the most the stupid kimmunicator doesn't work." She continued her search for the fugitive. "Maybe he isn't so bad. He...ssaved me and that cop after all. Some of the things he said made sense. What was that again? Ummm...

_"So you brought some Crawlers among to kill me huh?"_ "What the hell are 'Crawlers'? Oh maybe he meant these skeleton-things."

_"These are regular policemen and they will arrest you-"_

_"Huh! They will kill me and then you. They are not human."_

_"YOU are not human and-" _

She shook her head. _Arrgh no I won't listen to his stupid tricks! I'm gonna find and... ask him. Yes. Just ask him. And then I'll fetch the cops to get him. Yeah that plan will work out._

Kim moved through a sidealley since she had seen him enter there a few minutes ago and didn't have any other trace. But she didn't know further. She had lost that man. _"You have been given a chance." But what for? This is all so confusing. I wish Ron would be here. _She sat down on a fallen trash-canister and put her head into the hands while resting her elbows on her knees. _He would know what to do. He would just make one of his stupid jokes and everything would be okay. But... his jokes aren't that stupid... they're funny actually. And it's always so funny when he drops his pants. _She smiled a bit at the nice memorys. And at the picture of Ron wearing nothing but boxershorts right before he crossed his arms to hide it. _He does look kinda nice like that... I wonder what he looks without tho- NO I won't go there. Something like that is just stupid. But it's so cold... why can't he just drop by out of nowhere and hug me a bit. Just for warmth. _But in fact she wanted him to hug her in that moment not just for that. She felt lonesome. And it was always somewhat nice when he touched her. She always felt a bit warm in her stomach then.

So the great Kim Possible, the girl that can do anything, felt lonely and lost. She hadn't done it to find Ron after waking up and leaving the air-plane (like the most normal thing of course) and she couldn't keep the pace with an injured, hungry and almost-shot fugitive. _No not just fugitive. He's a murderer after all. And a cop-killer. That doesn't get "made away" by brabbling prophetical nonsense and killing some wierdo-cops with...orange blood... wait if these can pretend to be humans, and one has even been him... maybe he didn't do it. No that's weird. That's just too weird. He looked somewhat...human. On that bench. And I bet those things can easily jump over barb-wired gates. _She shook her very strong. _NO I won't acknowledge existence of strange skeletons with triangle-heads that can pretend to be cops and other humans and kill with inhuman speed, agility and strength. Although... I encountered many weird things..._

Huge green self-reproducing glibber-thingys, mad doctors with 30 meter high destructorbots, gigantic poodles, women who can throw with green flames (Henry and the other survivors also including his family and Ron would name it "Bio-plasm"). Yes she had encountered things too weird. And things that were very dangerous but still somewhat harmless and/or with one or more obvious weak spots. _But that thing had been...well... not much too different from what I met otherwise... just more...hmmmmm._

A small hum came closer.

_More...serious. Like some sort of the best from all my enemies without their flaws combined in one. Shego's speed. Hego's strength. And that are only two aspects. But the claws and the eyes... and it could somehow mask itself as a human_.

"Kim?" A voice spoke, and with that ripped her out of her deep thinking. She looked up and said with a hopefilled voice "Ron?"

"No sorry Kim. It's me Wade."

She still looked around and couldn't see it "But the Kimmunicator is-"

"I know I send you a drone with a new battery."

A small toaster-with-wings like thing landed in her hand, opened and revieled a new battery. "Oh." She quickly plugged it in and started the Kimmunicator once a new. Wade's picture came up and spoke: "Sorry for the delay but I found something regarding these bacterias."

"Shoot." _Oh that was stupid... especially when people got shot earlier._

"Well I told that it's a parasitic bacteria?"

"Yeah."

"It embedds itself in viruses to get into african bugs of one special sort." _Special...that sounds interesting._

"Go on."

"The african poo-bug." And Wade pressed a switch, a video came up. It showed a small bug that rolled a poo-ball three times bigger than itself. Kim touched her nose and held the Kimmunicator away. "Wade I saw enough discusting things today!"

"Anyway", he continued, ignoring her comment, "The bio-scans I made show similarities to that bug and the bacteria. Also a virus that is used to tansport it. A coincedence? I don't think so. I send through the anatomic data of the human male body through the computer among with these things and let it search for the best sort of life-form."

She arched a brow. "So?"

"This comes out: It has a survival-rate of 99.9 percent in any environment known to mankind, except for under water. Appearently it uses a mixture of the pro's of bug-, spider- and human anatomy without it's flaws."

"Aha."

Wade bent forth and said almost shocked: "Don't you understand what that would mean to science? The almost PERFECT biological Organism! Capable of living and surviving in areas humans need technology to live in without any food for months!"

"Yeah Wade could we please skip the biology-lession? I had enough of that at- OHHH!" She slapped her forehead.

"What?"

"I'm too late for school Wade! I already missed the first lesson!"

"So what? Don't you think that the great miss Possible can't skip school to hunt down a criminal on escape?" _Again the h-word. Hunting.._

"Can't you please stop saying the h-word all the time? He's still a human and we don'T 'hunt' him. We...chase him."

"And there is a difference?"

"Yes there is. Hunting is to slaughter some...thing to eat its meat." _Wait...that seems common... wait something else is comming..._

_Chief of Upperton-ploce Department-Henry Rockwaller, James Demar..._

"Henry Rockwaller, James DeMar and the chief of Uppertun Police Department." She said, more in thoughts.

"Kim?"

"Oh sorry. Just trailed off a bit!" She smile sheepishly.

"I can look for these guys if you want to."

"Yeah do that Wade. Anyway I've gotta go to school. Keep me on the spot. But only soft vibration alarm you hear? And could you get GJ to catch that man?"

"Yep I'm on it. By the way I heard rumors that he's supposed to be in he's in his late teens. Is that true?"

"Ummm he's a bit shortgrown but that could come from the genes."

"Hmmm. Okay Kim I'll be in touch." And the screen faded to black.

_Hmmm soft...touches...vibrations... I wish Ron was here... UHHH not again those thoughts!_

So Kim made her way towards school. She knew the way since mhs was only about twenty minutes footmarch away.

While making the first steps she heard a few unfamiliar noises. They were all the same but she couldn't recognise them. It souned likethat: "U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U...U-U-U...U-U-U...U-U-U-U...U-U-U-U-U" After having made about the half it died down. And about 6 minutes before mhs (Middleton high-school) She heard noises again. Now she could clearly distinguish them. One came rarely, the other two were heard in groups and often. Even the well-known Kim possible knew what it was.

It was Gunfire.


	23. What people can make other people do

Another undead's head slammed to look up to heaven as he pulled the trigger. Then J moved the aiming-needle of his m1 over to another head who moved just 3 feet away from his old target. He pulled through, but right in that moment the head moved away because of the more then strange way of walking and the round impacted on a former schoolgirls knee, forcing the teenager to a kneeling postition. But the creature easily stood up after merely one second and limped further. J was on the right side of the three stairs that led to the open front-door behind them. He was kneeling and rested his elbow on the knee for better aim, rich did the same and fired in 3-round burts. His Thompson made a loud and unnerving sound: "buch-buch-buch". Goff was on the left an rested the bipod of his newly aquired mg on the stonemade wall that should make it impossible to enter the stairs from the side. Which was a lucky thing for them. Together with the overthrown tables that stood in the same angle as the stone "walls" at each side of the stairs they formed a channel. Wich made it easier to shoot the walking heads since one didn't need to change the stance or otherwise aim further away. And, since they all moved very close to each other, Goff could mow autofire into them. Yes he mowed them with his gun, everytime he released a longer burst the entire mass didn't stop. But it was decimated.

Rich put another three-round burst into an ex-student clad in red and added crimson to the colors by doing so. But he couldn't understand why they didn't stop when he shot them. Guff gave him the answer while he reloaded his mp for the fourth time. "Single-shots at the head Rich!"

_Single? Hell mp's have been build for bursts. Hmm fine I'll give it a try. _He switched the firingmode of his mp to single and aimed carefully. What came out was better. Instantly one undead went down, never to rise again. Everytime he had shot enough rounds to kill an elephant with the morons simply fell and stood up after a few seconds. It was disgusting to him. Goff had more luck with his gun and even the teacher _Mr Barkin was his name now I remember what I forgot _Earned several kills. _With a colt. While I shoot the same rounds in bursts. Oh man how unfair. Well that headshot_ _thing should explain it all_. J, who always has been someone who aimed until he hit and didn't shoot earlier, made the biggest success with his semi-automatic rifle. Almost any round made a hit to where it truly hurt. The brain.

At first Rich had believed that they would be pushed back, but appearently they could easily kill off all the undead. They slowly shambled towards their position, but precise fire cut them down before they got int 5 feet range. Also they didn't come in packs but rather alone all the time. It seemed even easier after he found out that only headers take em out forever. But one time had been dangerous. _Goff was just busy with reloading his only left mg-belt and J was aiming at some undead at the beginning of the tableline. Just then 3 of them started to 'sprint-shamble' towards me! Man they would have got me if I hadn't shot my entire clip into them and only halting them with that until J easily picked them off. Man that would have broken our necks. _Barkin remained behind the door and only shot when one of them got really close and when he sensed that the others were 'busy' in that moment.

After a couple of minutes every former pupil of Middleton high-school who had been in the frontyard and had turned was dead. Again.

Rich spoke to Barkin: "Get the left students out now we can use the yard. They are all dead." Barkin nodded and got the students. They let him in without barricading the door, without asking for the password and without having even looked through the in-build window. If this wasn't something serious and if he would have the time for it they would get hell from him. But the evacuation had priority. As soon as he had called up everyone they walked (not ran, Barkin knew that would have started a panic) through the front-door. Shielded by the GI's from all sides, they marched in lousy order to the bus-compound. "I want each and everyone of you to call their parents and tell them that they shall pick you up in Lowerton. Say it would have been a bus-accident and that you would be stranded. Also tell them to bring your sisters and brothers among." Everyone nodded.

Suddenly someone screamed. He ran to the source and heard a girl shouting "Ahh that man tries to bite him!". Rich and him came to the part of the group where the shout came from to see Brick kicking a human head about ten meters into the air and 20 far. "Hah not with me fucker!" He shouted to the corpse on the ground.

"Move on we don't have the time!" Barkin shouted. A minute later they were finally at the busses. Everyone got in and no one was left over. Barkin was proud, finally they had made something without him giving out detention hours like warm soup to homeless people. He took over Bus number one and put up the radio:

"Change in plans people: We will evacuate to Lowerton. I told everyone of you to get your parents there. The bus-accident and the pick-up are lies. They won't come for you otherwise. Tell them that you have been on a school-project for...american history. If they ask why they are to bring their entire family among say that... it's important for the project to see how many people now live in Lowerton and how many hundred years ago. Tell them you'll get an F if they don't come immedatly AND that you forgot to bring warm clothes. That should get them here. Every bus follow me we will ignore traffic-lights. If anyone gets lost radio immediatly. That is it people. Who fails to get his parents to Lowerton...stadium gets detention for the rest of the schoolyear. (He waited a moment to let that sink in) Bus number one leaving compound. All other busses follow in formation beginning with bus number 2. Out.

---

Kim came closer. She ran as fast and long as she could but she wasn't able to hold up the pace for all the time. In fact, she was just tired. The short sleep on the airplane couldn't make the hard work with Shego and Drakken undone. Beside was she on her feet for hours now. And hungry, not that she would forget that. Sounds of gunfire grew intenser and came more often. _Just one block and I can see the school. Oh I wish Ron would be here. _Then, suddenly, the firing died down. She moved further and was only a few moments from bypassing a store that blocked view. She had to breath heavily and couldn't understand why. She was the girl that can do anything. And she was captain of the cheerleader-squad. That proved her endurance. Especially since she had to resist Bonnie always. That hardened one.

After a few more steps she heard the roar of huge engines and went around a corner. Kim leaned at the wall and looked. Everything was empty. Including the bus-compound. But one last sight of a yellow school-bus caught her eye: it carried the number 19.

"19? We don't have that many busses. Oh yeah now I remember: It's the old one with the stuck number-tag."

She breathed heavily again and sucked the cold air into her lungs. Normally no problem but this time it stinged. And just that stinging would accompany her for the left way to school. So she marched a bit slower and stopped every now and then. "Strange... I don't know of any school-project or something." After shuffling her shoulders and sighing she continued her way.

Kim entered the school-area (not yet the building) from north-west, the front entrance lay to the southwest. Means she couldn't see the front-door and the area before it, but the bus-compound, since it was a little bit peripheral. While standing infront of an opened side-door that would lead to a hallway, she mused: _Hmmm I haven't been to that part of school-building yet. _"Let's see, I like new things." Slowly her figure entered the dark hallway. She stood on about 2/3 of its entire length and looked around. Everything was empty. _What is this place? Art? No. What else? Hmm maybe just a few more classrooms. Maybe I should just go on and search around. _Very hardly enlightened by a few windows which were build in sideways the corridor looked spooky to her. She body shivered, making her grip the shoulders and grit teeth. _Huhhh it's so freaking cold. I should have brought my blazer among. Although.. I think Ron could warm me up._

Thinking of him made the cold a bit more endurable. She hadn't felt the cold much before since she had been running, climbing and doing other things that kept her body moving and burning material to fuel her muscles. And, as a sideeffect, making warmth. _Maybe I should just run around a bit. _She started to run through the floor and made even a backflip through the air without making any noise. But soon stopped with that as she felt the exhaustion only grip harder on her with its merciless, iron claws. _Oh great now I'm only even more hungry. When this is over I'll go to bueno nacho with Ron. Maybe I'm gonna eat some of his nacos for a change. Huh... I wonder where he is just now... _"UHH stop thinking all the time!"Shaking her head made it clear and she was ready to move again. TUNK

"Hah!" She screamed since the sound came out of a door next to her. To say better, the door made the sound. Kim took her ready-stance to fight. Suddenly all the exhaustion had gone, even if only for a few minutes. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she silently prayed that someone would come out and take a fight with her. Like this she stood for over half a minute. Three more bangs had come, but only silence after that. Slowly her hand went around the doorknob, carfull to not make any noise. _Now I know why I've never been here! That's the principals office. But I've almost been here once. I screwed up a chemistry-project and it exploded into the ceiling. I knew I would get a bad grade but p.o. ... Then Ron had suddenly said it would be his project and switched the nametags. He knew he had to go to the office and that the bad grade would spoile his B in biology he had worked so hard for. Wait... I never really thanked him for that... And for not taking advantage of me during the moodulator thing... And I still not apologyzed to him for leaving him locked in the janitors office because I wanted to dance with Josh. Am I really SO egoistic and blind sometimes? Sometimes?... _She looked through the window of the office-door and saw the secretary. She was appearently getting something up from the ground behind the desk. _Hmmm...maybe she just slipped or had to wipe the door or something... _Her hand slowly released the knob. "Huh!" _Voices from behind! _She quickly dove behind a trash-canister and looked with only half of her head visible. In front lay a crossing of corridors. The left lead to the gym, straigt on one went into the cafeteria, and to the right was the bus-compound. The voices came from there: "Are you sure?"

Another voice: "Yeah I know I forgot something."

"But you still don't know what! This is waste of time!"

Suddenly Kim realised that she will easily be seen if her head remained up so she bent down. Problem: She couldn't see anthing herself.

"No it isn't no discussion. Wait... (The steps stopped, Kim was frightened:_Did they see me?_) Now I get it: THE WILLY !"

"Nurrrch fine. But I tell ya there is no more ammo!"

And after that the steps moved away, her ears told that they chose the left passage. "Hmm maybe I should check out the cafeteria. I'm hungry anyway." _Even if there is no one they wouldn't mind me taking something... uhhh no I'm not a thief... but I'm so hungry..._

She opened the doublewinged door and stepped through. To the right were a few tables missing, and the food-plate looked plundered. _Ohhh great no food at all..._

"Uhhhh"

She quickly turned towards the noise and saw: _The criminal! And he has a gun! _She quickly ran towards the table and put the rifle under it, together with what seemed to be its ammunition. _Why is that so many small pieces? Can't these_ _villians be uncomplicated? _Her Kimmunacator beeped. "Kim I found the persons you asked for! And GJ is near you in a minute or so. They are already entering the school-area. Doctor Director wants to speak with you." The picture of Betty Director appeared. She crawled back underneath the table, stood up and took the device before her face.

"Hello Kim. As it seems you have again took all work from us."

"Oh no big in fact I found him by chance."

"Really? I have reports that indicate firefights."

"Ummm I don't know anything about firefights but it seems that he is not alone."

"I am at the scene. We will take over now, thanks."

"Hmm okay. " She switched the device off. _Time for some answers._

"Okay who are you and- Where are you?"

She heard a shuffling sound and ran towards it. After two rows of tables she saw the fugitive crawling on the ground and underneath a new table with the rifle and boiled pockets. _Ohhhhhhh I HATE villains with I-will-be-back attitude!_

_---_

He crawled further away from one of his harassers. A K98 had been lying underneath the table. No matter how weird and uncertainly that might have been he grabbed it and was thankfull. And much ammunition, too. Already parted in 5-round strips. _Luck in unluck, how cynic. Appearently fate won't just kill me it will let me struggle myself to death. _Table number two was almost finished. He somehow felt weakly in his knees. _I hope they haven't hit my leg. But I can feel that the round had stuck in the chest, somewhere at the ribs. _He knew the young girl was not stupid. Gunfire was like as if shooting a flare into the night with ten enemy snipers around one. But these people had needed help. To leave them alone would have meant their death. _And to protect is my task. She will soon be on my tail again, hopefully will I be able to walk then. Table number three... maybe I should just hide there... Yeah good idea! No bad idea. She can trace me with her gadget. Ah crap I hope I won't have to kill her, too. Even a leg-shot from this can easily cripple by ripping a leg off. She or me, She or me, She or me_

_---_

She had an Idea. An evil smile crossed her mouth as she stepped on the new table using a backflip and her amazing ninja-skills to not make any noise. She expected him to come out earlier, and not at the end of the table. But he came out. As she stood there, towering over her help- and clueless enemy, a bit of Shego-like badness caught her. _He's a murderer after all. _"Hey there big boy. Your travel ends here!" He staggered not even for a split-second and threw himself to his back while bringing the rifle up to the redhaired black-clad teenage-girl that stood above him. He was fast, given the circumstances, but Kim was faster. She was the girl that could do anything. Her one foot made contact with the rifle just as he pulled the trigger, the bullet rammed through empty sky instead of her head with mere centimeters difference. Kim felt the wind and saw the eyes, before and while he shot, filled with nothing but fear for the naked life and the will to do ANYTHING to protect it. But her kick did not only make the rifle go aside in the deciding moment, she also kicked it out of his hand, he barely made it to release his triggerfinger before it would have been broken or even ripped off. With a loud clank the long rifle flew and slid away for at least 3 meters. A coldness she never knew before engulfed her heart with claws of steel and she suddenly understood Shego a bit better. Her foot dropped on the escaped murderer's chest and pressed upon it violently. _I.. I shouldn't... Aurgh he almost killed me he deserves it- _And she pressed harder making him scream even louder then he already did. Without much power his hands tried to close around her foot and somehow release it but she enjoyed the feeling of dominance that spread out inside her. Tears started to run from his closed eyes through his hair to the ground and his scream went a small pitch higher, a lot more guttural as he appearently started to scream his soul and lungs out. Her mind only focused on the sound he made, and so she didn't hear someone shouting her name. Thrice. Then a hand packed her shoulder and violently ripped her out of the moment. She saw the face and instanstly froze.

"KIM! Kim Possible are you torturing a prisoner?" Dr. Director shouted into the still face while shaking her roughly.

"I---I...um." _Oh god what did I do!_

Between gritted teeth the young man could only get one word out, his voice almost breaking:

"Nazi"

Kim's eyes widened. _And he's so right...with that... why is Ron not here he could have held from this..._

---

The pain was unbearable. Even through the painkillers, which the man who had shot him or someone else had given him while he had blanked out from the bloodloss and trauma-shock. It burnt so hard. And not only the new wound. No, he believed that the old wound had rit up again, together with the stilled bleeding that came back to its destructive life. One thing was for sure: Without medical attention his end was near. He pulled all his reserves to turn around, and somehow his instincts of selfprotection made it to mobilise his body. He slowly started to hieve up his right leg and made it to bring the thing up, then he pressed it over the ground to propell himself forward. He succeded and tried it again with the other leg. He knew the people in the blue dresses were watching him and he knew they would try to stop him. But that didn't matter. In his mind was a simple mathematic formular: Rifle or Death. He attemted to crawl forward and felt happy as his body somehow made it get up from the ground only to find out that two people were gripping under his arms to hieve him up. He wanted to resist and tried as much as he could, but ended after a few seconds, pumped out and totally exhausted. _They don't even put me up to full stand to keep showing me that I'm less than them. Sadistic bastards. _He could not know that GJ was trying to help him and that, if they hadn't come so early, he would be in a much worse condition.

---

Betty was shocked to the core. Sure, he was a criminal for what the reports said, but NO human on earth, no matter how bad, or just semingly bad, deserves a such treatment. And that her inofficial top agent tortured a helpless fugitive didn't make it better.

"What did you think? Did you think at all?"

"I...I...don't know..."

"Damn right: You don't know Kim! Just such things let America look like a bunch of sadistic Idiots!"

"I'm sorry- I didn't mean to-"

"YOUR SORRY? (Betty never was angry or shouted at people but now she was a fury) What if he dies? A 'Sorry' won't cure his injuries! Just look at him! Do you think his family will be happy with "I'm sorry for having stompeded on your wounded son for FUN?" "

Betty saw Kim looking at the young man and felt that their looks met as he slowly hieved his head up. She saw one thing in these eyes: Blank hatred of an intensity beyond measures. Not that she would blame that man. One report said that he even got hit by a cop named George while making his explanation. Kim just looked away, unable to stand the guilt and hatred the look transferred. Suddenly the young man's face and look changed from exhausted hatred to plane fear as any anger faided into nothing, replaced by widened eyes: "Oh God-No!"

"Don't worry boy you will be safe-"

"NOT HIM!" He tried to struggle free but was kept still by gentle force of the two agents who held him.

"Her? That -"

"Doct-" But the male agent named Will Du couldn't finish his sentence because it was replaced by an inhuman loud scream. Betty turned only to see a wall of flame coming towards her and to feel something grip her lower leg and pulling it, making her fall forward face-first. Then something very hot sliced through her back and she remained, powerless, on the ground. After that blackness claimed her.

---

She barely made it to evade from the huge flamestrike that flew towards the group. Luckily the adrenaline had kept her on foot and as Will Du had started to scream she had jumped away. What she saw was very disturbing. Dr. Director and the fugitive lay still on the ground, Will Du seemed to disappear in the flames and the other three agents were bathing in flames. The fire vanished as quickly as it had come, at least from the air, and the ash-black bodies of the agents came to view. Will Du was simply no longer there, only a black spot that couldn't even be called ash was at his spot, the other agents were rolling on the ground, trying to get the fire out, or lay still, already dead. She looked at the person the voice belonged to and saw something weird: The prisoner was pulling the not-moving Betty Director at her feet while shouting at the two agents, which he had taken with to the ground by throwing himself down, to help him and shoot. _Shoot at what? _

Steps came, heavy ones, and she turned to see the one who made them: His weapon was black, except of a small and thin blue stripe of fire that came out of the round barrel. It was twohanded and held at above hip-height. The person that held looked like some sort of futuristic combat-armory, so black that it seemed to absorb any light around it. It seemed to be... colorless. Lifeless. Except for one thing: Its eyes. They were hidden behind a full-face mask that had a small tube attached to the mouth-piece which lead to somewhere underneath its chestarmour. The chest was guarded by two huge quad-shaped plates, below them and a bit closer to the body was another layer of armour. And below that, above the crotch, was another plate of armour. The crotch had a triangled armour-plate that held flexible plates for the joint. And more pieces of unknown armour protected the upper- and lower leg as well as the knee and feet. The arms and their joints were covered in the same material, just as the gloves, who were thinner to be more flexible. The shoulders had round plates that blocked view on the exact stature but weren't as oversized as on the armours of medieval knights. It basically looked like a normal man could wear a tux above it. Might look a bit thick but the shoulderpieces would still be a problem. Including the helmet, mask and tube. The mask seemed to be twolayered, with the upper layer beeing on the top to cover the eyes and the lower layer beeing above the mouth and having the tube plugin. All in all the upper layer seemed be build upon the lower, and to have plates who represented sharp and mean cheeks only to disguise the real mask (the lower layer that lay underneath) which would ceartainly contain the filter equipment. To Kim, it seemed like a Black Knight from the future, armed with a (an M2A1) flamethrower, that attached itself to the lower backpack which contained an antenna that went about 50 centimeters into the air, began behind the left shoulder upon the backpack and ended a bit above but behind the head. And the top of it's red eyes were hidden by the helmet's small front part, which was a bit like a small attachment to a circle that went down in a very small angle, in deeper higher angle and a bit longer were the attachments that went down at the sides and back to underneath the eyes, covering the head a bit better. Around the red eyes in a circular shape was blackness, since the lower layer covered the eyes while the upper layer, while the sharp "cheeks" connected to a slightly higher and thicker "nose" that was on top of the circular tubesocket. The socket looked like a small opened skeletal mouth. The socket would be the roots of the uper teeth, while the tube itself would be the roots from the lower teeth. The helmet threw deep shadows above the eyes that were only pierced by its penetrating bloodred and the cheeks shadowed the mask itself, but not the socket and tube.

And two things made that enemy so dangerous in Kim's eyes. The blackness that seemed to represent the murderous attitude of whoever wore that armour, and the illuminating red eyes. She didn't know if it was some sort of light amplification or UV- or infrared view, but she knew what this light meant: Bloodlust. It seemed to talk in a language too subtil to name, but with a message too clearly and simple to miss:

"I will hunt you to the end, no matter the cost."

Suddenly the door smashed open and three persons stepped in, one of them talking: "I told you we forgot something!"

"Oh yeah? What?"

"The electric energy, duh!"

"Well the generator is on the other side of school and no one's here so- take cover!"

And WHUUUP the three men disappeared behind an overthrown bench, the trayholder and another table that still stood around.

"Fire!"

And they opened up, one mg smashing lead upon the black danger, while a semi-auto rifle's rounds bounced off its helmet with loud humming and zirred further into random objects. The mp, held by what seemed to be the leader, shot in short bursts while its carrier moved towards the wounded Director and her agents. Lances of yellow light danced through the air as the gunner tried to crawl towards his rifle, flying gracefully and in almost-perfect flight-ways through the room. Loud whistles of rounds that ricoched off walls, or way more often, from the black tank, filled Kim's ears. She threw herself to the ground, trying to evade the dangerous hights filled with hot lead. A window shattered after an mg-round smashed on the man's helmets head, stunning him and forcing him to put a foot back. Tables were riddled with holes as misfirings, aiming-mistakes or simply ricoches flew around in many directions. And she could hear one voice clearly: It was the criminal who tried to get to his weapon. One her first look the poor man looked pathetic, his attempt to move reminding of a disabled person. But then she remembered all the times she had to crawl over the ground, slow like a snail, only still alive because someone, in most cases Ron, put his life in danger for her. Suddenly it didn't look pittable, since she had been in similar situations. Determination spoke from the movements that looked like the one of a freshly born or a disabled man. She decided to help Betty, but the fire between her and the prone Chief of GJ hindered her moving.

"Blacky" as her mind taunted the trooper, stood there and tried to move, but failed. Everytime it attempted to make a step forward a bullet hit it. But that wasn't the problem. Many bullets were. At least 3 rounds hit she/him/it every second, staggering its movement and making it unable to move. Everytime she tried to get a closer look at the armour's shape a round hit, but not entered the plating, creating small amounts of sparks that flew around among the bullets. For one time she had thrown her head down and found a hole at the place she wanted lie before she threw herself down because of too heavy fire. To Kim it was and apocalyptiy picture, to the three an old yeller, and the ex-prisoner was more occupied with getting it's arm back and the two idiots to work to watch his newest hell. She kept crawling and froze when she felt something hit her. She immediatly turned her head to the (_only?_) enemy and saw it's red orbs fixating her. A cruel feeling came up inside her. Not mind-control, not hypnosis, something simpler. Something as subtil as a jumbo-jet. It raised its flamer toward her.

---

It wasn't everyday's thing to see someone as armoured as a Sherman(tank) to walk around and just swallow rounds like corn beef. Rich was almost at the young man he had shot when he spotted a woman lying on the floor with a burnt back. He had seen flamethrowers in the ardennens and had nightmares for years. So he had'nt fazed when he had smelt the familiar smell of a flamer having been around. It was the familiar stench of barbeque burned steaks just 3-fold as intensive and of fuel in the air. Also a small portion of the gas that threw the burning liquid around hung in the air. And that black figure looked more than just military and, since it was the only thing still standing, obviously the one to blame. And the small characteristic blue flame infront of the barrel spoke volumes. He had seen that flamer in action too. _Yeah M2A1. That one burnt good. Poor bastards, those gun's should be forbidden. _But before the images of the burnt rests and the screams of the poor victims of the companys flamer came back he fired another round. And something astonishing caught his eye. It was the wounded teenager trying to pull that woman back to where his two comrades stood while yelling at two prone men to help him. He saw the fear in their eyes, but the teen seemed to used to it. And he smelled that one of the two men had pissed himself. _I can't blame him. Hell I pissed myself TWO times back then. _Yes, in his oppinion that was normal. Well, not exactly normal to just lie around in total fear but...

Then the late-teen, with the carbine on his back, shouted at him. "Come here and help me transport the wounded!"

He moved closer and was there before another shot broke. He took the woman onto his shoulder without speaking any word and looked into the young man's eyes. Rich saw that he had just the same idea.

---

_So that guy is in the middle of the room now. Basically I'm his target but he is programmed to take out enemy forces first if they are a high enough threat. So that GI moves away with the wounded woman and meanwhile I'll sneak around the thing, shoot it into its gas-tank and make its flamer explode by that. If that doesn't work I'll throw the grenade he gave me. _

Kim jumped over a table and turned it over shortly before the sadistic man had fired. She ducked and put her hands over the head while closing her eyes. _Oh god please let me get out of this alive! Please!_

"All right on my mark!" The GI handed him a small ball.

"Okay!" The other one answered and took the small ball. Kim knew it was a grenade. She followed the entire happening with split interest. The GI moved back to his still coverfire giving friends and set Betty down somewhere she couldn't see. Meanwhile the fugitive sneaked among the walls in small "jumps" into the black knights back. Now she understood what they planned. _They will-_

"NOW!"

And a loud shot came, the same as the rifleshot that almost would have deafened (or killed) her, and the bk stood still. A small part of his backpack dropped and fell into his hand, only to be thrown away among the gun-part of it. Then a small ball flew towards the man, landed slightly behind him, he turned around and looked at it. For over three seconds. It exploded and send the thing flying through the entire room until it collapsed into the wall at two meters hight. After making a huge hole into the ceiling it slid to the ground, with a lowered head, appereantly dead.

She bent down again and looked after the GI who had took Betty. She didn't find him and stood up. No one was in sight until she spotted them all standing around the fallen man. They all nodded, and their leader bent down to the dead attacker. She used that break to quickly sneak around them, moving to where she estimated Betty to be. She found her and put the glove of her hand off.

"I bet IT is still alive. I saw plenty of such in Upperton. Crawlers."

She tested the pulse. It was still there.

"Put the gasmask off and let me finish him."

She put her head to Betty's chest and listened carefully. There was still breathing. A sickening sound and another rifleshot came.

"Good now help me to get his armour off. " "Why?" "I must have evidence." "For what?" "For that he IS dead. Then will we burn him."

She carefully took Betty up and moved to the door she had come through, where the half GJ team had died. The two agents still lay there. Totally shocked and not moving.

"Kruuunk" Silently the door opened and she quickly moved to the nurse's office. There she found a second medic's bag and started to bandage Betty's back.

"What happened?" Betty asked after minutes of bandaging.

"Ohhh a man with a flamethrower came and killed half of your team. You were hit and blacked out, but now your safe."

"How bad are the burns? And where are they?"

"At your back. And I don't think that they are worse than second grade, and even those are rare."

"Ummmm..." Betty turned around, her arms crossed before her chest in a shy manner.

"What is it?" Kim looked closer to see that Betty was a bit red in the face.

"Can I have a new top please?" _Oh now I understand. Her bra must have ritten among the burned back-clothing. A miracle that all her clothing didn't fall off earlier. Silly me. So embarassing. _

She nodded discretely, reached a blanket to cover Betty at least for now and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her. Then she turned and saw something unexpected, but not unappreciated. She saw Ron. "Ron!"

---

Everyone looked at the door. Ratting, their newest groupmember, clad in an old firefighter's jacket and helmet and holding a sniperrifle towards the door to the cafeteria and Henry, who did just the same with his m4 which had an underslung grenade launcher. Drakken held his pistol with a body language that only made Ron hope that he would never be on the wrong end of the barrel. And he, as always, made the back-security. Henry had insisted that connie would stay at home after he activated some sentryguns with his consol. And through the nurses office, which was sideways about 15 meters in a corridor, came, suddenly, Kim. She said his name. He couldn't hold back. "Kim!"

Both ran towards each other and hugged themselves deeply and long. Ron began to whisper into her ear: "I missed you so much! I was SO worried about you! And Rufus too!" The small bugger came out of his pocket and joined the hug.

She also whispered while struggling to not cry from joy: "Ron finally you're back! I missed you all the time!" She released her head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes for what seemed to be the most beautyfull time in her very life. Like in dream she said: "Betty needs help."

---

Ratting released his grip on the gun and let it slide down. _Someone needs help? Hmm I should look at it._ _I'm the_ _medic after all. _So he moved to the door the girl had come through. She was too engulfed in her boyfriend to notice him. _Yeah maybe I'll find someone to be happy with too one day. Someone who doesn't betray me for cash or career or both and- _He turned the doorknob and stepped in, not yet seeing who was in: "Hi I'm Albert Ratting and I'm your medic today-"

"HaH!" A surprised scream came as the woman before him clutched a blanket closer over her body, showing naked shoulders. Her body-language told him that she was in surprised fear of him. _Hell every moron could have seen that._ His eyes widened since he had expected to see a marine with a missing leg, a mutilated half-corpse or a man who had simply crapped his pants during battle. But NOT a half naked woman with an eye-patch. Especially not such a beatifull one.

"Ummm that was...stupid." No response came as he pulled his jacket off after dropping his "Snipe" as he called it on a desk and holding it in her griprange. She eyed the thing and then him, unsure what to do. He put his head back, sighed and put it over her faster then she could have pushed back. Then he stood before her...and waited a few seconds. Nothing happened.

He sighed again. "Lady you must close it's buttons you know?" And he started to close the first higher buttons before realising his mistake. _Oh, duh. Never get close or even touch a woman on the first meeting UH Shithead. _

"Ohhhh errr sorry didn't want to ummm...you know... violate your privacy and stuff." She only looked at him like at a misfiring toaster.

"Ohh yeah right you need a shirt! Ummm (he looked around) oooee... Sorry don't have one. Oh no wait!" He raised his finger like a caveman who discovered fire and started to get his shirt off. After three attempts to pull it over his back he finally succeded and held it towards her, still expecting she would grip something from him. She didn't. In fact she looked at it like one would look at a windows commercial saying that it would run without any error.

He sighed again, this time harder: "Don't make me put that on you!" She quickly grabbed it, as ne could expect.

He looked around agian and spotted the open firstaidbox resting beside his rifle. "UHHHH SHINY!" He threw himself into the bandages and syringes like a six-year old into free candy. "Urrr have you been bandaged already?"

The woman, realising what a No would throw at her, quickly nodded. Twice.

"Okaaaay then I'm outta here If you need some help scream for the rat!" He pointed his two fingers at her in a gameshow-host like manner to emphasize that it was meant as a joke. She didn't laugh. In fact she didn't even flinch.

"Hmmm. " He put his lower lip out and closed the door.

He expected everyone to look at him, which was the case. He said:

"I stripped for the lady and after the t-shirt she wanted the blow the hell outta me but I only said that would eat too much time."

No one moved, no one said anything, except the black-clad figure.

"If you touch me again I will let you drink your own blood and suffer from it for days." It said without any emotion in its voice.

"Urggg...Hargchh" Were the guttural sounds the young redhead could get out while becoming faintly blue in the face and kicking her legs back and forth.

"Hey lady you look like one of these marathon walkers who try new training methods." Ratting made his jokes, as always.

"Put the lady down!" A demanding voice spoke from a sideway Ratting couldn't see. He moved a few steps further and saw three old men in old uniforms aiming with old weapons at the black armoured figure.

"Whow cool I LOVE interactive history!"

He threw the girl away to the right after getting swing by moving the arm leftsides.

"Yeah russian Hammer-throwing! MY TURN!" Ratting spoke, trying to be funny and to diffuse the situation with it.

He saw a blond boy in black clothing aiming his shotgun at the man and shouting: "You bastard!" But before he could even aim the left hand had gripped the barrel and the man stood sideways from him, pressing the right thumb deeply into the boy's left part of the adam's apple. "Never aim a firearm at me again or I will make you dig a grave, kill your girlfriend and then I will bury you with her."

---

Ron winced painfully even minutes after the man had released his thumb from the throat.

One of the GI's, holding a huge machinegun, spoke: "We didn't help you to put that armour on to do such things!"

"Really?" His voice was distant, reserved and cold, and the wish to hurt dripped from it like from a freshly out of water token sword.

"Yes" Rich spoke, "And you won't make yourself friends with your negative attitude."

"Neither with shooting people who sacrifice themselves to save students." Rich could only look down at that.

"You (Ron took another painfull breath in) won't get far with torturing random people!" _You bastard I'll kill you for having done that to Kim!_

"And your girlfriend would be the perfect concentration-camp overseer. Ask the Woman there what she does to helpless prisoners."

He pointed at Betty, who came out of the room, freshly dressed. She was also greeted by a thumbs up from Albert Ratting. She gave him an irritated look.

"No way she would never do bad things to people!" _Kim's the best person on the planet...well mostly... she is a bit ignorant and egoistic from time to time but..._

"Lies, young one. What do you think is heavily stepping on a wounded man's injuries? Little tip: nothing nice."

"Uhhhm I think we should leave." Drakken said while putting his pistol back to its pocket.

"Finally a productive idea."

They all went out of the building, the three GI's moved behind the black knight while keeping a close look on him. However just as Drakken wanted to jump to the front passengers seat someone threw him down and jumped on the seat himself. The two GJ's came among too.

---

Shego's been VERY bored. So she had started to make her nails. For the only-hell-knows-how-often-time. Then somone entered the seat beside her. She had already powderized or plasm'd a few undead who went by so she had her practise. "Finally Drakken you stupid moron-"

But it wasn't Drakken.

"Who are you? Where's Drakken?"

"Both answers are obvious."

"Well not to me!" She lit up her hands.

"First: not important, second: obviously behind you." _Oh you arrogant little prick!  
_

"Whoooow yeah I LOVE driving in cabrios!" Ratting spoke as he sat down behind Shego on the bench.

"So Drakken suddenly run's around half naked huh?"

"No."

"Urgggggh you piss me off you little whimp!"

"So?" _Stupid little..._

"Fine let's fight this out!" She got out of the car and waited infront of it. After a few moments came the man after her. _Boy I'm gonna smash you so bad._ They both stood ten meters away from each other. She got into combat-stance and heard Kim Possible, (who had come a bit later together with Ron because of her "accident" ) call her name. She quickly turned around only to see Kim standing around and looking at her. "RUN SHEGO! He will kill you!"

"Pah! You're next 'princess'! That HUHH I look so tought wimp is no problem for me!" She turned her head back to the guy who was just making his bayonett fitting on his rifle.

"Oh god we are all gonna die." Henry said. "I can't beleive they are fighting."

She jumped at him and gave him a slow kick. A beginnerkick. Easy to evade from. He evaded. _Oh what a surprise.  
_

"Come on big guy go for i- FFF" The butt of his rifle smashed into her cheek and she jumped backwards. She saw him jumping behind too and aiming at her.

"Ohhhh is the little boy to snotty for hand-to-hand?" She loved to taunt her enemys.

"Stop! Please!" Kim shouted. He shot.

---

Kim just stood there paralyzed. Sure Shego had been a villain but no one deserved death. Especially not as punishment for her aggressive temper. She looked away. But was surprised to hear Shego's voice after a few moments.

---

"So you think I'm impressed tough guy?"

"No."

"Oh yeah if this would be a real battle I wou-"

"Be dead."

"NO."

He almost sighed, but kept himself from it. Showing emotions to others is more then just dangerous.

"Go Shego get him where it hurts!" Drakken cheered her.

She screamed from anger, unlit her hands and went for it. He was too slow to block many of her blows, except for the obvious ones or those who needed longer to execute or prepare. _Ohh piece of cake. _He was getting exhausted, she could hear the breathing getting harder through the gasmask. But his armor was the problem. She couldn't find a weak spot. Everytime she used a good kick that would empty someones lungs his chestarmor protected him. And the classic Crotchkick didn't work too. Her feet still hurt a bit from that. But one goodplaced kick changed everything. It's force had not pierced, but bypassed the armor. He lost balance and fell to the ground, heavily breathing, gripping his chest and screaming a few times before dropping his arms and coming to heavy breathings.

"Hah!" She put the arms on her hip. "Told you I'm better!"

"Finish...it."

"What?" _That comes unexpected._

"Kill me."

"No that's not how it goes."

"In real life it does."

"No."

"I fought invisible creatures stronger, faster and smarter than you. Born killers, genetically engineered to kill at 99.9 percent effecience. Better then anything nature could have creatured. And won by luck. Or by surprising them. Or one of my friends had to die instead of me. If I can't win in a fair battle I do not deserve to live. I always believed weak people like me could somehow survive, be usefull, be...strong. But now I truly understand. Kill me. You have won, so claim your prize. Fullfill Darwin's law."

That caught Shego off-guard. _Wait he seemed so snotty and stuff. That's weird. _

"Errr. No. You... won't get away so easy!"

"Then (he tried to stand up, suddenly grabbed his chestplate and screamed, but so quiet that no one heard it) train me."

"NO that takes years to learn!" _What an Idiot. _"Like someone could become a fighter overnight!"

"I have been become a Warrior. Or at least did I believe that." _Oh yeah? So where is the difference between a warrior and a fighter?_

She sighed. That was more than unnerving for her. "Stand up and face your defeat you wimp!"

"How shall I when I'm dead? Out there in Upperton and here defeat is similar to Death." _Now what does that mean?_

She got to the car and sat on the driver's seat. And waited. For one minute. Then her temper got her. She stood up and shouted:

"Now get into that stupid car or I'm gonna humiliate you...even...oh..." Then she saw it. Almost everyone got up and saw it.

He was holding the rifle at his head and tried to pull the trigger, but his gloves spoiled the attempt everytime.

---

"Boy don't do anything wrong now!" Henry shouted, sounding worried. _Wrong? How the hell shall this be wrong? I only made other people die for MY mistakes. People who have been better then me. People who have been more valuable then me. More...usefull._

_Why does this take so long? Am I even to incompetent to end my own miserable life? Can I only end other people's lives? I stole enough chances to live from others by getting them killed through my stupidity or unawareness or...weakness.  
_

"Put that gun away son!" _Oh yeah No I'm your son all over the sudden, huh? You didn't wait to kill me just half an hour ago, Mister I-shoot-you-in-the-ribs-to-let-you-suffer-but-make-sure-you-survive-it-somehow. _His gloved finger finally got the trigger right and pulled._ Ahh finally and end to all the pain and endless struggle. It is typical that I don't die at the beginning. Finally... an end._

"This isn't the solution!" Kim shouted, trying not to think it would be, to a part, her fault. The guilt would break her._  
_

"Klick"

The trigger had moved and gave freedom to the bolt, it started its inevitable way to the ultimate destination or goal: the cartridge, or round.

Rich started to jump down from the craft, Henry's eyes widened and Ron stood up to look what was halting them. Time froze. Just like Einstein said: Time is relative.

_Finally an end to all the senseless struggle. Even that armour with its strength-enhancement, its gasmask and it's mean looks and heavy shielding can't hide my weakness. It can only prolong my struggle.  
_

No one could stop it, they could only watch it happen with the feeling of total inability to do anything, of total dependance, of total helplessness. A feeling the young man who sat on the street knew all too well. Much too well.

_I was born alone, I lived alone, and I die alone. I always tried to live all by myself but only got more dependant. Only a bigger liability to everyone. And no one even wants to end my life. I must do it all myself. I always had to do things myself. But no longer. Now I understand why no one saw me, why no one ever said thanks to me. Why all the boys picked on me and the girls ignored me. I'm weak._

_Just weak. I even need a rifle to end it. _

The bolt struck.


	24. A small look into the past

For James it all seemed so dull. The undead were still not in range and he had almost powered out himself. The snow was more then heavy to penetrate with his small handspate. He envied the lmg-group (light maschinegun) for their heavy trenchment-stuff. They had big spates and even a steamhammer. But he hadn't. And it wasn't the light powdersnow. It was the hard and heavy snow that amlost resembled marble.

After about of a quarterhour he saw something that made him dig harder. It was the first wave. The all lay in small holes in the snow, about of two meters long and one meter wide. In depth it was about of 30 centimeters. _If we only could get deeper... _But he couldn't. He was finished. But luckily Proctor came over and digged the rest with his seemingly infinite endurance. And his heavy spate. So the first holes were finished, working at them was more then just sweatty. Still a few pearls of salty water ran on his forehead and went into his cotton facemask. He let a look slide over his "bunch" or "pack" or whatever one could call this desperate group of people. Beside his hole were, in distance of always 20 meters, other holes to both sides. Those were either filled with at least one gunner or only with close-combatpeople. He knew they wouldn't last long. He, Ratting and Proctor were the only ones he really trusted, the other two were raiders who wanted to plunder with their arms as "offer-support". So he kept one, armed with a mac10, with him and the other one with Ratting. To check if they made any crappy things that was. For example running away moronicly. Beside his hole lay Ratting and his raider, after that came three cc-dudes and so on. Proctor was on his right, having another two cc's to protect him if anything went wrong. "Just hold out until we come, yeah yeah yeah."

"What, man?"

"Oh nothing important. It's just...if Chief doesn't come we're done for. But he will come. I know it."

"So only headers ey?"

"Yes. Try to do single fire. Or bursts. And always aim before you shoot."

"Yeah man go look at the other dudes before they're coming."

James nodded and went to the hole with proctor in. "Remember only singleshots. Your precise fire is the backbone of our defense." Proctor nodded and he went on to the nearest cc-hole. "Keep in mind they aren't invincible. It's no shame to retreat if you're drawn back." Again nods so he went on, past his Proctor's own and his hole. _Wow I own a hole. Man that's something to proud of. At least do I not feel the cold so much now. _But he felt something else. And he knew the rest of his group felt it too. Fear.

"EY DUDE!" His own raider shouted at him, over several holes.

"WHAT?"

"WHY DON'T THEY USE SOME TRUCK'S CONTAINER'S TO BLOCK THE STREETS?" James stood still. He hadn't come to that idea. It was simple and still somehow very good. It wouldn't take much to get a container around and throw it over with the wheels towards the inner yard of their "castle". And when they didn't close up that could be taken care of otherwise. It was a great idea. The containers would give great hight-difference and with some barb-wire and lumberplates the dead wouldn't be able to climb up. _Man that's great. _

"Hey you!" He shouted to one of the construction-men. "Yeah what sir?"

He scribbled something on a paper he had token out of his trousers. "Wait a moment... Here" He handed the man the note. It was text and a small map. "Give this to the overseer! Run to him as fast as you can!"

"Okay sir." The man spoke and started to sprint towards the two houses. From where james was it seemed like he would have to walk up a mountain. The angle wasn't high, but high enough to hinder any movement. He hadn't thought about that. Also the old warehouses, factories and chimneys looked like they would form the horizon, since between the second levels and roofs was nothing but the grey heaven. _It will snow soon. Maybe it's even gonna give a snowstorm. Four hours... what the hell made me believe we could resist so long... W don't even have ammo for 15 minutes and blowtorches, no matter how usefull won't kill them all. _

He slowly stamped back to his hole, every step aching and hurting, tearing at his high endurance. Swat had high standards, after all. But after hours of fighting, hiding and running, every man would start to collapse. He knew he could hold on for much longer. For hours. But it would not be nice and his body would go to its very limits.He dropped on his knees, into the hole, closed his eyes and let darkness engulf him. Everything was quiet and he promised himself to let it stay so for a few minutes, just a few minutes... He was already past the verge of falling asleep as something hit him. Something teared at his shoulder, far, far away. He mumbled a few unvlear noises.

"mhmmmmhmmmmmrmrrrrmm"

"Man wake up dickhead! They're here!" Something made a noise and his eyes slowly opened. The entire face was numb and as finally a searing pain impacted his eyes he realised that he lay in the snow face-first. Slowly his body rose and gripped, like in dream, his mp.

"Ohhhhh I can't believe I fell asleep..." Suddenly a very loud bang erupted and his eyes ripped open from the sound. It was a familiar sound. Again the dry whiplash rammed into his head. It was Ratting's snipe. His eyesight slowly returned to normal, as he saw a brown wall coming closer to him. _Whow...how many they are... certainly about one hundred. _And they all marched in formation, driven by one goal, one thing, one inevitable desire: Hunger. The brown wall came closer, they were now about 50 meters close. Again the whip lashed out and one of the figures fell, facefirst, into the snow, filling it with blood. But another stepped on its dead body only to move over it, only to be lashed down by another dry whip's bang. Proctor's loud ratlle mixed in and it plotted on them, dripping at them with unnerving endurance and continuity. It sounded different, like someone would throw a wet towel on the ground with high force. The single shots weren't effective, they just missed. Not like proctor would be a bad shot, it's just that hitting a moving target as big as a melon on a such distance. _That reminds me off a comparison to ICBM's: one man stands on the end of a footballfield and on the other end one shoots. And oneself must get that bullet by shooting at it midflight with an old rifle. Oh man. The laugh.  
_

"Proctor Full-auto! Mow them!"

The answer was a loud DAKKA-DAKKA that continued for over a minute. James watched with pleasure as bodies were thrown back, fell to their knees, lost their heads or just were ritten intwo. Then he decided to join the butchering. His mp barked it's angry bullets at the mass, falling some, making others stumble and taking someothers in the head. _Maybe a laser-scope wasn't a such bad idea... _

The mass lost more and more of its "men" but it proceededgain ground. They were only more 30 meters off as his own raider opened with his mac, holding the left hand above the backpart and not really aiming. "Hey yeah a second header dude! Better than when I aim!" His weapon continued to spray in bursts of about 5 to 8 rounds into the wall. It got thinner, more and more of them lost their footing and the horizon behind them was seeable: Also brown. Mudbrown. James fired several times upon one and shouted at him: "Why don't you stupid fucker just die!" _Oh he's in the second row. That's a reason... _The second wave was already coming at them, beginning unharmed several meters further then the first. One couldn't distinguish between the now 10 meterclose undead and those that still were several dozen meters away. Ratting, sensing that wave one was done for, fired his whip at a numbertwo member and earned a satisfying head-combustion: The victim's face simply vanished and got somewhat pulled into the skull. Ratting couldn't withstand the opportunity to shoot through the hole in the head that was as big as a tennisball and quickly fired again. To his imense satisfaction it went through the still-standing skull without touching the innards, impacted into another skull, made it explode and continued throug rows of corpses. He patted his awm gently and switched the clip.(the arctic warfare magnum is one of the very few bolt-action rifles that have a real clip and the only one that's still merciless precise). After doing that he pulled out his secret reserve-weapon: a 92f. He rested it beside the elbow to quickly react when it was important. Again the scope got to an undead, but just as he was about to pull one of jame's rounds cut it down. Wave number one had been stopped one meter before the trench with wasting half of the entire ammo. And wave number two came closer, was bigger and had been unattacked for 1/5 of the way. Hand-to-hand was to be expected. Even if no one wanted to. But they had to.

Proctor changed the belt after emptying it into a five man squad of undead who had been only meters before his trench. It was his last one. He still had a colt 1911 with him but he hoped not to have to use it. After finishing the reload he slammed the butt into his shoulder and put his left hand on in, the cheek on top. With the left eye closed the aiming circle wandered underneath a head. It was the woman he had a crush on in seventh grade. With a softening face he brought the finger closer the trigger. Then he remembered one sentence:

"They are already dead."

Again the circle came together with the needle and filled the line. And again the huge flash came and another round flew.

---

19323131-13334 flew through the barrel. It turned with insane speed and twisted through the air. It had left it's old bud, the cartridge, and made its way among the turning rills who only helped it gain more speed. Then, with inhuman speed came it out, the air flew past it speeds only jet-planes reach, but remained underneath mach1. So it hadn't have to penetrate the sonic-wall. The bricks were pretty hard.

It passed by mister Andrew Derringer, bitten while trying to run away, flew, narrowly missed Jack Dork, and entered the skull of one person: Julia DeMar.

---

They were close, too close, and the first turn of bloody melee began. The workers stood up and ran the three meters to the undead men as they have been told. A few of them swinged their straight blowtorches like swords while the angled ones wer beeing brought down like axes. One of them even jumped into the air, smashed down his torch, immediatly incinerating all rotting flesh around the thin blue flame. The cleaver came down and cut the undead man in two pieces, who fell aside while bathing the attacker and his surroundings in blood. But the man took too long to stand up again and two undead threw themselves at him, throwing him down and immobilising him. Before they could get a bite through his protection suit he slashed at them, splitting the one in half horizontal, and seperating the other ones gripping arm.

Another two didn't have the chance to kill since a group of undead came at them while the fear still pinned them to the ground, the threw themselves over the men and sealed them in their own trenchhole, making it their grave.

Another three men formed a squad and slashed at the undead while covering each others backs. It proved to be effective but they were soon encircled and only a quick order of james got them to retreat for several meters and decimate the undead so that they were no longer enough for a such manouver.

Ratting stood up, he knew his trench would be lost for now, so he got his 9er and shot an undead into the head, another two came dangerously close so he moved backwards while firing at them. Headshots were difficult with pistols and while moving backwards too. He spotted that everyone moved backwards while somehow fighting. They were pushed back, slowly but they were. He gave another header and went for the next, but the undead was burned by working flame. His raider "bodyguard" was nowhere to be seen. He looked around to see that the man was running towards the barricade, which slowly took form. They had one truck-container put to close up with a wall, but he knew that another one wouldn't fit, so they had to think out something else. Quickly. He remembered the title and refrain fom one of his favourite metal-songs: "Be quick or be dead!"

He had given the overseer his cd-player and told him to play the music through his megaphone as a sign.

A sign to retreat, for that the barricade was at least somehow finished. Everyone knew that sign.

But it still didn't come.

---

James fought further, he gave another undead a header and reloaded. He only had one clip left. Wave number two had been defeated and they ran back to the trenches. Everyone dropped into them to reopen ife or seek shelter from what could come. But nothing came. The brown wall stood still. Then two sounds erupted and Jame's eyes followed two objects during their flight through the air. A whisteling sound accompanied them in their decent. "Cover!" Someone shouted and they dragged themselves into the ground, as the two things impacted near the lmg trench, making huge explosions and throwing two corpses, one from a killed worker, the other an undead, through the air.

"Pile up the bodies at the trenches!" He ordered while looking to the left. He stared into a halfed face. It had been his raider, the eye, while almost falling out of its halfed socket, stared at him. After seconds of shock James could regain himself and grab the man's shoulders to pack him at the trench's upper edge to build more height difference, fueled by the new firing sounds of two new objects. he ducked just in time to evade from scatters and splinters, who flew across his head with a high zirring whistle. And the body moved, a sickening sound showing that it had been hit by scatters who had been destinated for himself. It's arm came over into the thrench, it still clutched the mac. He tried to take it, but the fingers were frozen. He slammed at them with the butt of his own mp and managed to break them with sick sounds. And the blood on the grip, which held the clip, wasn't nice too as he gripped it from the remaining two dead fingers.

New firings erupted, this time four, and he heard the shells impact somewhere as he pressed his body into cold unfriendly snow. The explosions left ugly craters with black smoke-clouds. Screams came. Then he managed to look over the corpse while resting his mp upon it for better aim. Brown, massive and moving was the view. And two huge things that looked just...weird stood among them. He could only se two strange balloonlike growings. They opened and pressed something into the air, making the known firing sound. His mind shouted. It was nothing else then blank fear. He had the smashing knowledge that no help would come, a hammer pressed him into the ground, everything was lost anyway and the simply downchrushing knowledge that they had no more ammo destroyed his will to resist. _Maybe just keep lying, just don't move and the might ignore me _His mind resisted: "NO! NO! NO!" And then kept on with a fear that is stronger then the fear of normal men. It screamed: "Death! Death! Inevitable Death! Run from it!"

---

Ratting couldn't belive his eyes: Bio-mortars! Moving and breathing and throwing deadly shells into their troop. Again the insane scream came that marked a new salve coming up, and with a huge whine the shells came down to the earth. As he looked up after that bombardment his eyes saw the following: James stand beside his had a small wall of corpses and was well shielded, but James already made his way back to the barricade that lay on the hill several hundred meters above and behind them. More left was Proctors stand, he was still shooting into the masses and kept, always a few, at bay. Many dead lay before his hole, which was better made and enforced then the others, but also a few craters went around his stand. They must have picked him as best target. However to the right was a huge group of undead entering two holes, who both had received full-hits. No matter if the signal came or not, they would have to retreat now. He stood up and shouted:

"Pull back! Everyone to the barricade! Coordinated retreat!"

A few faint snowwhite figures raised from nowhere and moved up the hill some were slow, some moved steadily and a few ran, but they would soon become slow and maybe even collapse. He started moving after giving out another header, but it took him two rounds. His body was tired from all the stress it had to endure during upperton and the cold ate itself into his body. Every step was a torture. The legs almost in cramps, arms that could not hold a gun for long and a lung that was as pumped out as his stomach. His knees slumped forth, mechanically, as if they would think for themselves. The sound of Proctor who empited his belt and then stomped off himself filled his ears. And many others. Futile screams for help, another series of explosions and stomping, made by the stampede of the dead Deathbringers.

As soon as he had begun to walk, James and his path closed and they met, simply walking together, without word, only fueled by instinct. They waved their limbs in same tact, same speed and same way, but James could no more. He fell. Ratting immediatly packed his shoulder and pulled him through the snow, feeling that it is the right thing while his mind hammered on his heart: "No no no leave him! Save yourself!"

But he didn't want to. his body was waving and he pulled james in jumps, but the further they came the more snow hindered him. Ratting didn't want to accept, see, feel, hear the truth: That his friend was lost, and he with him if didn't let him go. Ratting pressed further, but his body resisted even more as it already did, signalising him to give in his fate. So Albert Ratting, son of the Elmer, dropped James DeMar, son of the Jaque, on the ground. He withdrew his pistol. _Should I just end it here? Make an end to the pointless suffering? The town is lost anyway. No. Or maybe...yes? I own my friend this favour. He is unconscious and his body is beyond warming up enough to live again. But I will not let him rise again. _He aimed the pistol at james head and said: "Thanks old friend, it has been a great time."

And pulled.

The weapon empty now, but maybe usefull again in the future, got back to its pocket. Then he moved back to the barricade. Heavy fire was coming from what seemed to be two overthrown truck-containers and it smashed past him. He made it to the barrier, and a cop bent down to reach his hand to him as he stood before the container. He grabbed it and said: "I can't pull myself up!" There was no time for fake pride. Sometimes people must face their weakness and grow by doing so. "No prob buddy!" The man, a member of Swat, shouted at another and the said other man extended his hand too, gripped Rattings and the both hieved him up and between themselves. He blacked out.

Voices came from somewhere. His eyes opened and he was on a bed.

"Nice to have you back, Albert."

"Chief is that you?"

"Yes. I want you to do a special mission for me. Since James is dead, you're the only one left skilled enough for that."

"But what about the barricade?"

"Oh sitting around and giving headers isn't too difficult for trained and wellfed swatters."

He stood up from the bed. "So where am I going to?"

"Middleton High School. They send a distress-call just one minute ago."


	25. Groupmeeting and Bonnie's soft side

Hey folks back again: from now on a --- can mean (but doesn't have to) a difference in time and personal view, mostly leading into the past. I left out some things (the exact first battle at the school, upperton, the snowfights, max' prisonship and river thing) to tell them in flashbacks and, for example when Ratting blacked out on the barricade, just jump over ceartain things cause he/she/it didn't notice them or since they weren't important OR will be described later. In this case because Ratting was unconscious. And if I'd describe any small thing (like the drive of Bonnie's group from meeting Rich to her home) that'd blow the frame, right?

Also I have a question to all you readers: Shall my story get fantasy elements? A good example for when that worked out well is the dark-tower cyclus from Stephen King. I'm gonna do a such addition/explanation If no one says no. But one question remains: Who created the sickness? Whoever tells me that in reviews and is right get's a cookie! Nah just a joke: Gollum-like voice: "My cookie! My cookie!"

"Ahhhhhh finally at home! I can't wait to get new clothes." Bonnie was happy and stretched while Derrick stopped the engine.

Od yawned: "Can we get some coffee please? I'm tired."

"Same here." Bonnie replied. _A warm coffee_, _new clothes and much sleep. Yeah that'll be good. _"I'm gonna take a long bath and then I'll take new clothes."

"Mind If I bath after you?" Tara asked.

"No I'll keep water warm."

"I will make something to eat meanwhile." Derrick offered.

"Yeah!" Od agreed. The two girls nodded. Derrick took that as a sign to get out of the car. Everyone followed suit and they went into the kitchen, Tara and Bonnie had a small talk during that:

"You think green fits to my blue top?"

"No way, that would screw with your blond hair."

"So how about green and my blue baggies?"

"Green is so the no, spring-colors are in and green isn't."

"Oh okay... how about blue and-"

"Blue? Uh uh!"

A new voice mixed in: "Where have you been?"

Bonnie turned around and saw her sister Connie leaning in the kitchendoor, only one meter to the left from the entrance door. "Connie?"

Connie nodded and went on: "Dad was SO worried."

"Dad? Where is he?"

"At Middleton High-school. Together with the others."

"The school? Why? And who others?"

Connie started to count with the fingers at every name: "Some blue man, a woman in a green suit-" _Green suit? Fashion-crime!_

and Ron Stoppable." _Why that guy? Oh wait the princess must be among too._

"Let me guess the princess is with him too?"

"No."

That caught Bonnie by surprise. She bent forward and made big eyes. "What?"

"Kim is not with Ron."

"Whow."

"Well you seem...green. I thougt you are up to date? And the car looks...nice too." Her sister, as always, taunted her.

"Why don't you get attacked by some 7-feet spider that eats someone and bleeds full the entire car with green slime AFTER ripping off the roof HUH?" And she, as always, put her hands to the hips and stroke back.

Her sister frowned and shivered. "Big spider? Huhhhh" Bonnie smiled. _She hates spiders. Hehe, litlle snot._

"She's right. We don't wear green for fun." Tara assisted her friend.

"And who are your two boyfriends there, Bonnie? I know your...fast with getting close but two?"

Bonnie freaked and screamed: "They are NOT my boyfriends!" _You stupid little bitch! Stop pressing me down everytime!_

"Really? Well you've been through with that Josh pretty quick.One day Bonnie!"

Bonnie crossed her arms before the chest and looked away. "That's been something else." She muttered.

"Oh yeah Bonnie? WHAT else?"

Before Bonnie could try something else to escape another frustrating defeat Tara jumped in. "Josh died just a few hours ago. And you're not helping her trauma with your mobbing." A subtle sense of aggression was among her voice.

"Oh you killed him Bonnie? Now that's a new record!-" She got even sadder. _Why does she never stop with that? It hurts so much! _.

SMACK

Tara stood above Connie who sat on the ground and stared at the blond girl in disbelief while rubbing her red cheek. "If you don't shut up NOW I'll beat you to the hospital! You stupid BITCH think you're better then her huh? But you aren't! You are just a weak little clown! And there's plenty much more (she put her hand up like someone who got swing for another strike, Connie moved a bit back) where THAT came from! If I ever see you only mocking her you'll get the beating of your lifetime!" Tara's look spoke more than thousand words. It was literally radiating anger and aggression. She came back to the still sad-looking Bonnie and took her arm.

"We leave Bonnie." She could only look at the blond angel. _Oh Tara, you're the best friend I ever had. I wish you had given her that earlier. A whole decade earlier. And Lonnie too! I wonder that bitch is. She NEVER missed a mock-poor-bonnie-together season.  
_

They entered the house and went to her room, leaving a paralyzed and irritated older sister behind. Before Tara gripped the door-knob Bonnie spoke: "Ummm"

"No big Bonnie. I can't stand people who hurt others."

"Thanks Tara. Really."

"Oh I said already: No problem." Both stepped in.

"I meant...ummm... for beeing such a loyal friend and... I never had someone like you and..."

"But now you have, Bonnie. I'll get some water running, you look for some clothes 'kay?"

"Mhm." Tara left after that and closed the door. Bonnie began to open her closet and looked at the first top. It was a normal blazer. _I wonder what Tara likes... I don't know that much about her. I wonder what she would be like if I hadn't met her. Well I would be even more srewed up. It's just so nice to have a good friend close everytime. _She saw another top, red and orange this time. _AH what made me buy that? Oh yeah- the great red-orange wave three weaks ago. When I'm thinking about the past now... I wonder if Ron and me would together now if Kim hadn't come. It's not fair that she keeps him from all the other girls. She always says "I'm happy when Ron gets a girlfriend." But in fact she keeps him from getting any. She pretends to herself she wouldn't do it. zita for example. It would have worked out in the end but no. Miss Possible must get him on one of her missions EXACTLY when he has his first date. And how should a girl feel with him? "Sorry for not beeing home, Kim needed me. Sorry for not shopping with you, Kim had migrane, Sorry for not having meal with you, Kim said I'm not allowed to play, Kim, Kim everywhere! _

Another top came. She found it nice. _Nah. That's better for Tara. And how bossy that princess is! I still don't get why Ron hangs with her. She just keeps 'cheating' him with others. For example Mankey. He runs through all south america to keep her from death and she just USES that he's off to date with Josh! How UBER-RUDE is that! And she ONLY made it to ask him out and not become a pile of embarrased shit by exploiting that embarassment thing! Uuuurghhh! That bitch doesn't deserve him!_

"Miss Bonnie?" Derrick had opened the door after knocking thrice and she hadn't noticed it due to her intensive thinking.

"Srew the 'miss' thing."

"Oh...fine. Coffee is ready and food will be in fifteen minutes. I'll call then."

"Really? What's on the tray?"

He frowned, then understood: "Oh, wiener schnitsel and-"

"What the hell is that?"

"Wiener schnitsel?

"Yes! I mean Wiener! You get the hint! And what on earth is a schnizzel?"

"Well that doesn't mean the same in that culture. Potatoes and mushroom-sauce are also there. And the meat is called: Schnitsel."

"Fifteen minutes? That's fast."

"Yes I am a good cook. If you please excuse me?"

"Go and cook oh master of cooks." He chuckled a bit and left.

"Wow what a gentleman. Wouldn't have expected that to come."

"What Bonnie?" It was Tara standing in the again open door.

"Oh...errr."

"See? Don't judge people on their first looks. I hope you learned that now."

"I have, I guess."

"And that means?"

"Ummmmmm...dunno!" She huffed her shoulders.

"That means that you will apologise to someone if you will ever meet that someone again maybe?" _Hmmmm. No bad Idea. If the people would just start to see my true self._

She looked confused. "Oh yeah? Who?" _Hmmmm. Brick? No, cause he's a prick. Josh? No, he's dead._

Tara sighed and raised a finger but Bonnie spoke first: "Oh yeah NOW I get it! All the geeks and nerds at school right?" _Okay I admit it: I've been way too mean._

"Well...they too but that's not who I meant."

That confused her even more. _Not? hmmmm weird._

"BONNIE!" Someone shouted from downstairs. Her eyes widened and a wonderfull natural smile came on her face.

"DAD!"

---

To say that Henry's morale was on the bottom would be an understatement. And even that is a carefull estimation. First his daughter, then his wife, and then some bastard hit her other daughter. Who had been protected by sentryguns. And his other sibling was still MIA. Or maybe already KIA. He had to check if he wouldn't want to wind up like someone else: Pointing a loaded gun at the head and pulling.

And there she came down, clad in something...green. Her eyes widened and his heart lost the weight of a thousand castles as his little princess came, running down to him. Even through the given circumstances he smiled. He always did when he saw his little Bonnie-girl.

---

"DAD!" She shouted with glee in her voice. Then she jumped the last steps and threw herself at Henry, her beloved father.

"I knew you would come! I knew it!" Her father looked into eyes filled with love and trust that would have melted every emotional barrier.

"Yeah. A shame I didn't come home more often, honey."

"Oh no Problem dad! Will you stay?" He released his hands from her hip and stepped behind to look into her eyes. _Oh please dear God make him stay! Please! Just listen to my prayers only once!_

"Ummm. "He bit his lower lip and looked away. _Oh. So he's not gonna stay. But why does he never stay? Why? I wish he wou- _

"Yes honey. I'm gonna stay a-"

"YES!" She hugged him deeper and lay her head on his chest, barely leaving him enough air to breathe. "Where's mom? She's gotta know! This is so great! I hope you marry again soon! Oh I'm SO happy dad thanks!" She gave him a small peck on the cheek and got back to hugging him. Without noticing that tears ran down the cheek she had kissed just a split second ago. _Oh this is so badicall! Dad's gonna stay! YEAH! So great!_ She also didn't know that everyone who had survived the school-fight looked at their leader and his daughter. Some with happyness, some with sadness, and some with a small and supressed envy on someone who had an at least half intact family. A family and home to return to when it all was over. If it would ever be over. "So where's mom and Lonnie?" She asked while still not looking up.

Henry bit his teeth and his lips waved, shivered and almost let out a heavy whine. He gripped all the strength his daughter had given him and said: "They're...fine. But they won't come back for a while. They had... a car accident and have to do the insurance-stuff to not... get sued." He had struggled to keep any emotions out of his voice and won. This time.

"Hah that's typical for her! She always drove bad and cursed much after you left!"

More tears rolled and he had to open his eyes to not see the image. _So she HAD still loved me. Oh god in heaven if I only had known that! Why lord why was I so blind? I know: Because I was an idiot.  
_

---

Nothing happened. But he knew what to do. With grimm determination his hand moved to the upper part and performed the needed ritual. A small device flew through the air as intended. He was about to do it again but blackness came.>

---

"I'm sorry but I haven't expected you people to show up. But I can make new food for you." Derrick appologised to the group that had not stood in the living room before.

"What? Nothing to eat? But I thought-" A slash at his shoulder from Shego made Drakken stop his sentence. He rubbed his shoulder with the other hand and shot her a mean look through narrowed eyes.

"No problem!" Kim said, but a huge growling from her stomach made her grip it and blush. Drakken laughed and this time Ron gave the punch to stop. Shego, having waited for an oppertunity, went into combatstance just as Ron but they suddenly stared into Derrick's mp- muzzle.

"I know that this is impolite, but I must insist on mannors in this house and situation."

Everyone except the two "victims" agreed but tried to hide obvious signs. Rich entered through the frontdoor and shook his head. "My my how rude the youth is nowadays."

Derrick was taken aback and stammered: "Umm...sorry sir-just..."

Rich laughed, long and true. "Just a joke young man. Ease up."

"Oh...yes sir."

"And screw the sir, Derrick."

Derrick nodded, and everyone felt that a bit tension in Rockwaller estate's livingroom vanished into wellbeeing. Jokes and laughter can be very good for the troop morale. Bonnie released her father once again, not seeing the tears since he had wiped them off in time. She looked into the old man's eyes. They were immensly intense bright blue and showed much joy of life. But they also showed an immense pain and sadness among all the good feelings. Also tiredness, fatigue and huge tension. _That man must be good in hiding that he's worried much. _"What is it mister? Worried?"

Rich, surprised in beeing discovered, answered: "Yes... it's...ummm" He took a deep breath and looked to the ground. Tara shouted from upstairs: "Bath's ready!"

Bonnie ran up the stairs and almost bumped into Tara, who came down, still "clad" in green. She spoke:

"Oh! Hello Mr. Rockwaller! You see the car it's...ummm difficult!" She smiled sheepishly and shifted her stance many times, nervously.

"The car? I didn't notice any difference." Everyone looked at him for seconds. Shego spoke:

"So your car ALWAYS has no roof, green slime and a smoking engine?"

He frowned: "No, not really. But that's not important now."

"Oh, good! Umm (Tara touched her lip in thought) where have you been?"

"We heard a distresscall from-"

"What's a distresscall?" Tara asked, Shego rolled her eyes, Kim and Ron were sitting closely on the couche sharing a blanket and henry still stood there, lost in memories. Someone outside shouted: "Rich coma and help me he's not gonna fly into his grave!"

"Oh yeah!" Tara looked around. Rich turned to leave, and a woman in a firefighters jacket and with an eyelatch sat beside a man with a blanket over his upper body and reached him a cup of coffee. A man with blue skin and samecolored labcoat had a thumb-fight with a woman wearing pale skin and a black-green suit. They "fought" over who might sit on a comfy leather chair. _What a bunch of idiots... Oh never judge on people's first looks. But what in god's name is THAT? _

She had expected that old army-clad man would have friends but seeing two sameclothed men surprised her. They more looked like restless museum exhibition. And they seemed to tow something black from a car that was WAY too flat to be allowed on american streets. AND it stood still 2 or more feet in the air. "What are you doing there?" She asked towards the man she already knew while standing in the doorframe.

---

He came closer, but knew it would be too late. Before touching ground the man would have pulled. _No he has already pulled. Why am I doing this then? _As he fell, the mp as always in the right hand while using the left to jump over the cars edge, no explosion sound came. _That surprises me. Maybe he thought different? _His boots impacted ground and propelled him to the sitting shadow. Why they did that was a mystery to him. _Now I get it- _the hand moved to the carbine's lever, _he_ pulled it up, _has _pulled it forward, _hasn't ejected the old shell after missing that shego-woman _the old cartridge flew into the air, still a bit smoking, and the hand moved it backwards and down again. Then the hand moved towards the trigger _no no no no _but Rich flung the butt of his rifle into his left neck, hitting and blocking the main artery hard and knocking him unconscious on the spot. The shadow fell to the ground backwards with it's legs still spread out in a v.

---

"Oh the guy there just shot himself and we're putting him in grave." Her eyes widened.

"Haha just a joke." Her face softened, appearently calmer.

"He stabbed himself!" She paled again.

"Goff shut up! You're scaring the little girl!" The other man who was named J, what she didn't know, said.

"Oh yeah? Don't you know what they see in horrormovies these days? And they seventeen year old's aren't little girls like in our time."

J sighed and shouted: "Now pull you fucking bastard or you're gonna clean the toilet's!" Suddenly the other man pulled faster.

"Ummm" ,she began, "What exactly happened?"

"Ohh Rich shot him, the redhead stomped him, poilce hunted him, the usual stuff."

"Police? In which case?"

"Ohhhh dunno, but was all over the news. Like someone would watch at 6.19 a.m. Please get back inside we gotta do some 'mantalk'."

"Oh." She said and stepped back into the house.

---

Betty had "organized" one of the meat-pieces, some potatoes and a bit sauce for...well...Albert. Of course she had told Derrick it would be for her. _Really nice man that Derrick. On first look one could mistake him for a stupid gangster. But...Albert seems very nice too. _She shook her head rather violently to get the thoughts away. But they always came back. She had again and again caught herself looking at his upper body. _Not a sixpack but still very nice... URGHH No I'm a serious woman! That's why I became GJ's head. And not cause I get distracted by some man. _In fact, Betty Director never had a relationship that was above platonic. Not even as a teenager. _These stupid you-wanna-go-with-me? letters. Pffff. Idiotic crap. If it would have been real loveletters I MIGHT have answered but that..._

So she entered the room with Shego sitting in a chair and reading an out-of-nowhere-spawned magazine. Drakken stood near, sucking his thumb and mumbling something. _I still can't understand why I let these people come along. And what is this all about anyway? I still not know how all this crap happened. Hffff. Two men killed and two alive. One still sits in a corner with a blond girl in strange green giving him a shoulder to lean on and the other is getting new pants by the man that seems to be the leader. Kim seems to have tortured a prisoner, I still don't know why that flamewall didn't hit me and who had the flamer. And where is that fugitive anyway? And why am I getting all gitty on- _"UGHH" she slammed her head into a wall, which must have drawn Rattings attention.

"You alright mam?"

_He's looking at me...okay stay strong your the professional here stay strong _"Ummm" _Oh yes. Now he thinks of me as some mentally disabled moron just gre-_

"Shall I take care of that headwound? You seem... to feel lost."

_He touching me? I don't know... that doesn't sound that bad... nice candlelight...him massaging warm chocolate on my back and licking it off in drops- _"NO!" Her face was in utter shock.

He waved his hands in defence: "Oh all right miss...errr mam I mean." And while turning his head away he muttered: "Oh yeah now she's horny. Idiot..."

_Maybe I am hot boy... you should come over and put my fire out-NO ARUGHHH NO _Again her head made contact with the wall. He stood up and came towards her, but had to walk around the couch. _Oh he's coming-he's coming...maybe he should come otherwise..NOOOO I am self-contolled I am serious! Goddammit! _He was only more a few steps away. _Hoooooohhhh stay calm betty stay calm... oh my knees are giving out... _She suddenly staggered and would have fallen if he hadn't caught her arm.

"Mam I think you need help with your physical." _Oh yes I need very much help but not with a shock you hot medic-boy you. NONOO._

And the headbanger began, but ended with his other hand gently keeping her forehead from getting to much swing. _HAH! HE'S TOUCHING ME! TWICE! Hoh lord what to do? _"Mam we are gonna " _go to the bathroom and have a shower together? _"Walk to the kitchen _together? _and you will eat your food there."

"Ummm er um oem that ain't mine..." _Say something come on he thinks your stupid._

"Hmm?"

"That's for you... umm would you..." _Sleep with me? hAH NO GOD NO Please don't let me have said that!_

"For me? Ummm. " _Yes nice present hmm? Would you now please two to your cave? Urrrrrghh this is disgusting!_

"Well then I'm gonna..." _Hoh that angry look he has upon the food...maybe I should just lure him upstairs... no I won't do that I'm _

"Gonna give this to you as present now move to the kitchen."

"That's what...I wanted to...urm "

"Oh really then move." He said and made a step forward, and because he expected she would move too, what she didn't, rammed her. _Uhhhhhyesagainharderdeepersomewherefurtherdown_ _NO! _She grabbed her head and the face was of utter terror. Luckily he grabbed the plate before it hit the ground (without dropping anything from it).

---

_Oh man that woman must hate me. First I ram into the office like an idiot, then I touch her, force her to wear my old stinky clothes and during the carride I even sit beside her! IDIOT! Well, what a weird car. _He didn't know she had intentionally seated on two seats and left to one when everyone else already had a seat. And that she snuggled herself close to him in the curves trying to look like beeing hit by the g-force was also unknown to him.

---

"Shall we...sit?"

"Oh ermmm. If you want me to mam."

"Ummm yes?"

"Errr. okay." So the both sat down believing the other would at least dislike them. She began to eat. Slowly. In fact, she wasn't hungry for food. Rather hungry for him.

"Mam you must use the fork and knife like this..." He bent over to grab the things, suddenly stopped and pulled back. "Oh, sorry mam."

"No problem you can have it. I'm not hungry." _Why didn't you touch my hands? I could have lead them to... funny... places_

He looked at her dumbfouned, his eyes rounded by plain confusion. She did so too, in confusion of her own sudden change in mindset.

"But you need food to heal-"

"I only need new bandages." _Grip the bait, grip the bait, come on grip-_

"Shall...I ummm you know... bandage and stuff?" _Uhhh he's excited! Yes! ERR NOOO! He's...nervous. Yes just nervous. _

She nodded as calm as she could manage. _YES YES YES Massage I'm coming! In the double sense! no wait...that's not what I want..._

"Umm I have the medical stuff with me but where-"

"Upstairs-" _And don't forget to bring something else..._

"Aha."

"Bedroom."

"Aaaaaaha." _Oh now he senses it oh no he thinks I'm a slut!_

"I mean...since...ummm. Hugggfhg. (She let her shoulders sink)I just thought if I would lie still on the belly you would have it easier."

"Yeah that's right. I'm just...surprised that you don't just slap me all over for violating your privacy so often." _I want you to violate my intimacy you hot sexy firefighter you... NOOOOOOO This is too much idiotism! Why I can't I just stop my...my... INSTINCTS to take over?_

"Oh that happens. I mean...if one is...injured."

"Yeah but I kept-"

"Oh shut up! You just want me to forget my about back!"

"No mam! I-just-just- have morale-issues about this!" _Hurrrrrrrrr I like strong men with strong issues..._

"Now shut up and follow me upstairs or I'll give you-"

(sigh) "Yes mam."

"That's what I want to hear." _Am I smiling seductively? Ummm I should stop that._

So they both went upstairs into the parents bedroom (which Betty found more than just quick) She closed the door and lay down sat down facefirst and back to Ratting standing at the beds edge. She began to slowly pull of the sweater and lay down. Meanwhile Ratting turned around. He asked if he could turn around and she said yes. So he began to get off the old bandage which was fitted with plasters at the outsides of her back so that one wouldn't have to go around her full body to make them hold. Kim had been aware of that Betty Director had been embarrassed and had done the bandages that way. Ratting looked away as he saw the burnings. They weren't deep but covered her entire back.

"Mam you had luck that your clothing hasn't molten or burnt into your back." _Ohhh but I'm melting here just now._

"Could you please massage in that pain-lowering gel over there?" She pointed towards the small box that Ratting had attached to his sidebelt and upperleg.

"Oh yes if -"

"Would you please? It...hurts..." She tried it with the sad voice and it worked out well.

"Okay. " He sighed again. It would be a long day.

---

As his hands slowly and carefully approached the burnt skin a slight sigh of her came. Also her back-muscles contracted, in expactation of an attack. But as he stroke over the backpart of her shoulders a total easing started. She seemed to literally sink into the blanket. He sat with his legs stretched out sideways from hers and soon felt that he would get cramps in them and his back. So he carefully put his legs over her butt, spread them in a v to not touch hers and rested on his own knees and lowerlegs. After that he could bow down as much as it took to massage the lotion into her tortured body. He was amazed how this woman could withstand the immense pain. (He simply didn't know she simply got a syringe filled with painkilling medicine by Kim) "Mam?"

"hmmmmmmmmmhm?"

"Tell me if it hurts too much okay? It's not a shame I mean that is serious stuff here."

"Jusssst keep on..."

He frowned at that. Sure he had massaged women before (not only his wife before they met) but this was different. This woman needed and wanted help and not satisfaction. Sure he still knew some of the old tricks, but that would be wrong. Just wrong. It would be abusement. He couldn't see himself in the mirror without saying "you monster" after exploiting this moment. Maybe she somehow liked or even enjoyed that. (He doubted that.)

---

_Hooooh so good. This could go on forever. _His hands carefully knitted over her injured and stressed muscles and everything just felt warm and good. He moved over her shoulders and she went up to her knees, took his hands and lead them to the part of the shoulders, that is beside the head. At first it staggered, but after a few moments he went on, way more carefull and slow. Then Betty pressed her back into his chest, lay her arms over the shoulders to his back and gently pressed him closer, so that his head was just beside hers.

"Thank you Albert." Was her whisper, as she turned her head sidewards, he did so too. There eyes met and she lost herself in his firered eyes. He bit his lower lip and kept looking. _He's so...fascinated. _One hand touched his and slowly moved from her back over the side of her hip and onto her stomach while her fingers slowly and gently wringed around his.

"Ummm mam this is... way too intimate..."

"No I like it...Albert." _Wait am I...seducting a married fireman? By using an injury as bait? Oh this is so low._

Something made him soften, his willstrength sank a bit: "What are you doing mam?"

"I'm sorry Albert...I-just...It's... ummm"

His eyes got a bit angry. "I-just think ...I'm ...attracted by you... Albert."

With eyes as big as tennisballs the man only could look at her, totally confused. Then Betty did something she always thought to never do: With closed eye(s) her lips pressed against his, the whole body turned around, pressed against the other, arms crossed over backs and found halt as he slowly accepted her kiss and moved his head a bit to one side to allow her lips to cover his more and longer. One hand moved under the shirt he had borrowed from henry (who had said "I should demand payment") and rolled it up to his throat, every muscle in both bodies tensed as their naked skins touched each other for the first time. Quickly the kiss's passion rose, together with both secret wishes, as they moved their heads and forth and back, left and right, faster and slower, only to fullfill a desire their both souls had held back for long time: Love. Not just the physical sort they did to a part in that moment, and not the one only based on emotions. For Betty it was something never felt, for Albert a thing long believed to have left with his wife: Desire. Not desire to link lips and exchange bodyfluids, but more the desire for a way to express their positive feelings for each other; to link their souls. Betty was about to the end the kiss, which already took about of two minutes. With one hand digged deeply into her unharmed hair he pressed her head nearer, lips closer and tongue to hers. She sighed louldy through her nose and muffled mouth, and even froze in movement for a split second only to quickly adapt to this new thing. First he had remained gentle, allowing her to learn and try herself, but after a few moments his tongue started a battle for dominance of pleasure. She accepted the duell and was drawn back into her own mouth, his experience and gentle body-pressing giving him and advantage. Against his odds, the young lady whom's name he didn't know became better and better, their both tongues kept wrestling for, not dominance, not victory, but simply because it was a gorgerous feeling, a feeling that came already by starting gently and got better and more intense the more they "fought". And they did not even remain in their mouths. After a few seconds of remaining with mor and more boring thing they both opened their mouths and distanced their faces a bit too let their starving tongues move around each other freely and more pleasuring.

While beeing accompanied by many soft and not loud, but very passionate moans Albert pressed her forward and onto her back with gentle, but determined force. His hand quickly digged its way into her trousers, which were seperate from the upperbody clothing at GJ, and received pleasured louder moans by his newly found lady. And as he started to kiss her shoulders and gently enter her with his pointing and middlefinger his other hand tried to pull of his jeans. She, meanwhile, had one hand on his head to press his lips deeper upon her longing skin and the other tried to open the belt of her own trousers. They both realised one not satisfiying fact: If they wanted to continue, which was out of question, they had to let go of each other for a few moments. But he had something to keep her satisfied while he opened the belt of his jeans and undid it among his boxershorts: he carefully moved his lips around her nipples, gently sucking, lucking, sometimes biting and mostly all at once at them. His name escaped her mouth, more a guttural expression of joy and lust than of namecalling, and he rewarded her with gently biting stronger while sucking at her entire bosom through his teeth and moving his slippery warm tongue over and around the small piece of desirable meat in his mouth. Fingers moved through his hair as he started to undo her trousers and kiss the small, thin, and grey piece of underware that stretched over the only place of her body that was not known, but yet still somehow familiar. With strong and long movements two hands moved over two female breasts as their fingers played with the nipples. His kisses grew stronger and he started to feel the exact stature of what was underneat. Two small mountains that hid a valley filled with dreams. So he stopped to kiss that place, and brought his tongue out and exactly between these two borderlines, hitting the innerverges of both and the cotton above with every stride. After a few times of that she moved up her legs and pulled her panty over them. As soon as it had left her legs his hands spread them widely and he entered the now opened valley with his tongue.

First he remained of the upper side of "inside" but then pressed deeper into her. He enjoyed the knowledge that she was doomed to just witness and to not act herself, but quickly found out that it wasn't so. Her bones moved among with their legs as she changed the axis of how they stood on the joints to open up more to him. And again he rewarded her with an even more erecting thing: lips, before doomed for stillness, now pressed upon her labia and flooding her with more impulses and feelings as his tongue could also enter even deeper. But, as soon as it had started did it end, as he grabbed the cheeks of her butt and pulled her up, she knew what to do and got up with the rest of her body. Betty knelt upon her knees and lowerlegs as he spread out his and put her body closer. Both torsos stood upright and their heads were infron of each other. She opened her legs even more and put herself over him, while he made sure she could not slip. Again her breasts pressed againt his ribcage as he looked her into the eye. She nodded determined. With that he slowly pressed her lower body closer, her labia split again and he entered her. She mourned loud and threw her head up as he pressed more, deeper it went into her. She mourned even louder and moved the rest of the way herself. Both opened their eyes and looked at each other, seeing that the other was heavily breathing. Both knew: It wouldn't take long. With locked lips she moved towards his hips and he supported and enforced that movement by pressing on her butt and back. Both voices rose to a stakkato of loud guttural noises, mostly consisting of ahs ohs and yes's. Faster, faster then they both expected, their sweating and heating bodies moved closer and as the wonderfull end came closer, Betty lowered her head again, Albert moved his up and the kissed very deeply, but without tongue. Again every muscle inside them stretched, as their final moans were only more muffled by themselves and their cheeks, as the movements got slower, and came more rare. After about a half minute later they both shared looks, as she slowly moved away and her labia closed again. Both went underneath the blanket and decid to lie there, just for a couple of minutes, only accompanied by themselves and their synchronicly rushing heartbeats.


	26. Drowning in life, swimming through death

G'day folks. I'll try some of the "reallife fantasy" as I call it. So NO elves and fireballs. At least for now, that is. However reviews, flames or whatever else as a confirmation and/or response to/for my work would be nice.

------n---

Shego and Kim stood in a row like the others who wanted to eat. But Ron, who hadn't watched where he went bumped into OD, who bumped into Kim, who hit Shego. Luckily before she hed taken some food. The woman in green quickly turned around and lit her hands up.

"So it's a fight you want huh?"

Kim, sensing that any explanations would be pointless, accepted the challenge and started a highkick, which hit Shego unexpected. She flew over a couch, right into Drakken's lap, who stood up while screaming like a schoolgirl. Shego slid down from his legs, fell upon the table's middle and made it collapse. His food fell upon her, the piece of meat narrowly missing her head, while sauce and mushrooms landed on the chest. She got up and yelled at him:

"DRAKKEN MY SUIT!"

The blue-skinned doctor, sensing that Shego had "one of her moments" as he called it, ran. Henry came down the stairs and looked at the man who ran past, as blackness claimed him. Ron and Kim looked at Shego, who stood there, totally enraged, with lit up hands and already in movement after Drakken. Said Doctor screamed through several rooms: "It was her not me! Shego I will cut off your loancheque if you do this!"

"I'm gonna cut off something else fro-" A hand gripped and stopped her foot. She looked down to see a loaded Colt directed at her head.

"If I EVER see you attacking one of your comrades again I'll shoot you cold blood!" Shego looked over the gaping black hole of the weapon and into the right eye above it. More stern, cold and angry than she could ever look at someone. A hand covered the other eye.

"And if you or anyone else EVER attacks a commanding officer again will I cut your fucking eyes out, cripple your knees and let you get eaten alive!"

Everyone came into the room and saw the two figures: Goff, Rich, J, Ron, Kim, Derrick, Connie, Od and Drakken carefully looked around a corner. "And if I lose my eye YOU will lose both!" Everyone saw the blood that ran down from Henry's left cheek while the eye itself was covered by his left hand. Of course he had to let go of Shego's leg for that. His hand went up, Kim turned away at the sight and Ron took her head to his shoulder, Derrick flinched and Drakken spoke: "I told you to behave your temper Shego! Now you crippled someone!" The doctor ran out of his cover, since he knew that Shego wouldn't attack him. She just stood still while Goff detached his medic's bag from the upperleg, knelt infront of Henry, who had lowered his colt, and Drakken demanded:

"Painkillers: Morphine!" Goff handed him a syringe and Henry laid his head back. Drakken took the syringe and spoke, while injecting the fluid into Henry's arm: "We might be able to save the eye if we get him to hospital quickly."

"Not without my daughter! Get Bonnie here!"

"No time!" Drakken demanded and turned his head towards Goff: "Help me carry him, take the shoulders!" Goff nodded and moved his arms into Henry's armpits while Drakken took the feet.

"Not without my Daughter!"

"We will send the black armoured dude after her." Goff said while already moving him trough the door.

"And Tara can look after Bonnie they both need a bath anyway, man!" OD agreed.

Derrick scribbled a note and gave it to Rich, who dropped it on Henry's console's table while J and him carried Black Knight and sat him into a chair. Derrick quickly prepared a few sandwitches meanwhile. Rich heard steps on the stairs and J went off to look.

"Oh just Ratting and Oneeye. We leave people, get to the car." After that he knocked at Bonnie's door and said: "Hey! We leave, Henry wants his daughter protected. If something happens phone him. A few noises came as response. Everyone except Bonnie, Tara and BK left. Henry protested, but it didn't bring just a thing, since the morphine slowly kicked in and made him fall asleep. Rich took his cellphone while Shego started up the engine and carefully sped up, not meaning to hinder Drakken with bandaging the eye by fast driving.

---

Tara came into Bonnie's room, after checking if no one was on the floor, clothed with nothing but a towel. "You have something to put on for me?"

"Sure, how about this?" Bonnie waved her arms at a summary of clothing on her bed. "Chose what you want! You can even have underwear if you need some."

"Oh, no thanks I have mine." She stepped in and looked at the clothes. "Besides you have different cup-size."

"Oh...yeah. Didn't think about that. Anyway I'm gonna look where the others are."

"Well...downstairs maybe?" Her blond friend replied.

"No someone knocked on the door to tell me that they leave and I should phone dad if something happens. And I'm hungry."

"Me too!" Tara replied while holding a top at her body. "You think that fits?"

"Everything looks perfect on you." Tara blushed a bit at the compliment and Bonnie left. In front of her was the door to her parents bedroom, to the left was the room of Connie, beside that the one of Lonnie. She went to the right and downstairs. A few sandwitches lay there. She grabbed them all except the one which had onions. Her shoulders shuddered at the mere thought of onions. "Buahhhhhhaaah." After that she ran upstairs again and knocked. "Come in!"

Bonnie came in. Tara stood, clad in a brown blazer and a camo-pants, before her. She turned left and right to give Bonnie a better look. She stood there with wide eyes. "Come on say something!" Tara said playfully. "You like that?"

"If I'd be a boy I'd jump at you!" Tara blushed a bit and both girls giggled. "Anyway I have some food." Tara reached for one of the sandwaitches, but staggered.

"Onions?" She asked with tense body.

"No way!"

"Good." Tara relaxed a bit and gripped it, both sat down on the bed and began to eat. "Hey," Bonnie began. "We gotta go to school you know."

"Ummmmm nooooo. We had much stress with that huge spider and the carride, and the police and...I'm tired." Tara let herself fall onto the bed, Bonnie shrugged her shoulders and did so too.

"You know," She turned towards her blond friend and rested her head on one elbow, "I don't remember us beeing here. It's so...nice."

Tara took a bite and nodded. "You mean leaving all the stress behind?"

"Not only that... did you notice Connie? She didn't say anything since you slapped her."

"You should have done that. No big Bonnie, that's what friends are for: to help and rescue one when you're in danger."

"Friends... yeah..." She let herself sink into the blanket. _How many friends did I have till now? Hmmmm let's see. Ron before that bitch made him obsessed with her... then... no one. Until Tara came into cheerleading... and all the guys I had? No they don't count. They just wanted to get me in bed. And stupid me let them. _

"Bonnie don't sweat it: I'll always be there."

"Huh? Really? Promise!" She didn't realise that her face was in fear and sadness.

"I promise to always be there for you."

"Tara you're an angel!" Said blonde just giggled and waved her free hand dismissively. _No really you are. You're my only friend. I couldn't stand it all without you. _

"I mean... I just don't want to loose you."

"They way you lost Ron?" Bonnie's head went down and she nodded. When she felt Tara hugging her she looked up again. With closed eyes she hugged back. Tara carefully stroke Bonnie's hair and whispered: "Don't worry. It'll all come out good."

"If that bitch wouldn't just CLAIM him like that... he's the only boy I ever really liked. He was always so nice and so...loyal and faithfull. She should either start dating him or leave him free for all the others!" Small tears ran down her cheeks and she started to sob quietly.

"Shhhh it's alright." Tara stroke her back and head even softer. After a few minutes Bonnie stopped crying. Tara's hand touched her chin and lifted it up again. Then she gently wiped off the small strokes of tears that had remained and said. "There. You don't have to fear that someone would attack you if you show your feelings. It's okay to cry if you feel like that."

"Really? But all the others in school..."

"They just think you would hurt them. That's why no one wanted to be your friend except me. They knew you would hurt their feelings if they showed any. And not just you. All the jocks too. I broke up with Brick cause of that."

Bonnie slowly released the hug and looked at Tara. What she saw was loyalty, niceness and understanding. "But not everyone is like you."

"But everyone can understand and help you if you're nice to them." Bonnie wasn't entirely convinced but that had to wait since a thought came across her mind. She quickly stood up, and searched through her closet. Tara got up and asked: "What is it?"

"The mad dogs every year game with the upperton Lions!" She said, not looking up from her digging. Tara's eyes widened. "Oh shit!"

"We can still make it! I'll drop you at your house, you get your uniform and then we'll drive as hell."

"But with what car?"

"Oh I have something nice! We can use my dad's Harley!" Bonnie finally found her uniform, stuffed it into a small bag and took Taras hand. Then she opened the door and said: "To the Bat-cave!" Tara shot her a funny look and both giggled as they ran downstairs.

---

"We're at the hospital with Henry, Bonnie's dad. He wants you to be around and protect her. Hence the rifle. Bonnie would is a very happy and nice girl, so that should get away your sadness. At least that's what Richard said. Sandwiches are in the kitchen, just as first aid stuff. The bag's in the kitchen. -Derrick"

_Who the hell is Derrick? And why the hell am I not dead? I want to be dead goddammit! Am I too incompetent to even kill myself? This sucks more than anything that sucked before. Hey the mauser! And a second one! Cool! Maybe I'm gonna get to kill some undead. Yeah, that would be something to live for. Live to kill. Killing ain't gonna get me rich. Live to kill to get paid! Yeah!  
_

He put down the note and stood up. It hurt like hell but he had to do it. _Should check out the medical supplies. I hope some painkillers are among. _The weapons on the table before him were the carbine 98 and a mauser m96 pistol. He took it into his right hand and aimed at a closet only 3 meters away. The weapon did waver in his hand, like any pistol would do, and it was somehow difficult to aim since the long distance between the first and second aiming-device. Then he took the other hand, held it at it's front magazine and was impressed. The aim was remarkable much better. _Must be my lucky day at the gunshop. _He put the holster to his right upperleg and strapped the pistol in. It fitted good. Then he withdrew it again, there were no problems with drawing and aiming quickly. After putting the pistol back he strapped the rifle over his right shoulder so that it hung vertikally like the antenna. He looked said device. _Hmmm I wonder who is on the other line of the radio? Maybe the one who created this virus? Since the guy who wore this armour before was his most trained executioner._

_Bonnie?__ Wait... _He put the head back and closed his eyes which was seeable since he didn't carry the mask at that moment. The memorys came. _"Maybe you should just leave" "What did you do to her?" "She was in the way of your leader-position" _He quickly shook his head and the memories away. _She... she was it. Argh. And I am to protect her? No way. _Then something inside came back to life. Something he thought that would have left among his comrades:

It was the old loyalty, the need of brotherhood. _It's Henrys daughter. Just great. _He sighed as his old instincts came back to life: The instincts of protecting the helpless, those in need without a way to help themselves. _Order is order. Up, for we march again. _He stepped through a door onto the floor and went downstairs. _Shouldn't this place be burnt down? It's a tunnelconnection to Upperton. _Inside the kitchen his look captured the small bag with a red cross upon it. He strapped it to his left upperleg, since the right already held the holster. It was, just like the holster, flat and fitted snuggly to the armourplates around his upperlegs. However the bag had to be opened and clapped open, which he practised thrice. Quickly the two buttons who held the straps opened and the bag fell sideways off. _Hmmm if I hang it otherwise... _After refitting the bag it always clapped up downwards, means that all the instruments, syringes and bandages lay ready on his lower upperleg. It had a zipper, but he let that open so that it always would just clap open. Just as the holster, it had to be easily and quickly accessable. And gripping a zipper wasn't easy with gloves on. Luckily the things were strapped up inside the bag and wouldn't fall out of it.

---

Bonnie herself was clad in a dark pink blazer and dark orange trousers. _I wonder where the keys are. Oh ,duh. Dad always lets them stick! _Tara ran down the stairs just as she did and entered the garage. It was an old and misty place. Everywhere lay dust and it hung thickly in the room. Behind her the sunlight from a kitchenwindow lit up the room sparcely, but not enough to see any details.

Tara shuddered at the scary sight. "Scary!" And hid behind Bonnie while still peeking over her shoulder. _Okay fine Tara is a bit frightened from darkness but after wannawheep that's no wonder. _Bonnie touched the wall and didn't find the lightswitch. Instead she found something hairy touch her hand. She pulled the hand back into light and saw a black spider, not bigger as a thumb, standing on her hand. It's red eyes reflected the small bit of light in an arkward manner. She screamed up, Tara screamed up, the Spider prepaired to bite and Tara's hand-wipe let it drop to the ground, where it got stomped after that. _EEEEEK that was close. WAY too close. I'm not the only one in our family who fears spiders. _"Ahhh." She hit the switch, light turned on and she ran to the garagedoor's controlpanel. _"up" "down". Idiotproof. Whatever. _After pressing a switch the gate went up and she sat on the bike. _Wow. What a great feeling that is. SO cool._

"Hop on Tara!"

Tara sat down behind her, led the hands glide to Bonnies waist and found grip. "What about helm-" But Bonnie drove up, the heavy engine made the massive roar of a steelmade beast and the pitchblack harley made it's way out of the garage.

"Up to Middleton Highschool Gym! We'll cheerlead them to hell! And the best thing is: No princess!" Bonnie was overjoyed, first that massive vehicle, then the unbelievable feeling of controlling that awesome power and then the knowledge of not having to stand in the second line because of some I-can-do-anything snot. _What a great day! Hah this will be the best day ever! Even with that bitchspider killing someone and ripping my car to shreds! _"What will we do without Kim?" Tara asked while Bonnie let the heavy thing strike over a crossing.

"I'll be the number one!" Bonnie said, total joy in her voice. "And this time the stupid bitch won't get all the honour for herself just 'cause of standing around and smiling while others do the whole work! And you'll get my old position Tara!"

Tara looked amazed. "Really?"

"Yes! And you'll do fine. I know it."

"Ummmm but it's the first time I do that figure-"

"You never disappointed me Tara. Just believe me you CAN do it if you just want it!"

Tara blushed a bit and gripped harder, but Bonnie liked that feeling. It felt better than all the idiotic boys touching her. Even though it wasn't sexual. Or maybe just because it wasn't. Bonnie saw a light that was shortly before becoming red. "Oh not with me little boy!" She sped up and ignored Tara saying that it would be insane and that they should stop. She turned the grip even more and the engine obeyed willingly. It propelled the entire thing further and Bonnie bent a down, taking a screaming Tara who pressed herself at Bonnie's back while closing her eyes, among. The crossing came closer any second. Bonnie pressed the grip further and harder. Then and idea struck her brain. She leant back, took Tara among, she kept screaming, Bonnie screamed louder from poor thrill and the frontwheel lost ground contact. It's massive gasoline swallowing engine shouted it's deeply pitched rythm among the two girls heartbeats as it went over the crossing, narrowly missing a bypassing car and throwing itself back forward before Bonnie lost control. Other drivers could only look in amazement before driving on.

---

He heard two voices scream while examining the only left sandwitch. It was struck by two things he hated: Peanutbutter AND onions. While finding out that unpleasant fact he heard them, threw it to the table and withdrew his mauser. After going through the kitchendoor he heard an engine speeding up and moved, slowly to prevent a too early discovery, with an expertly drawn weapon through the house entrance.

"Up to Middleton Highschool Gym!" He sidestepped out of the door, aiming at the sounds source. The halfcircle embedded upon Tara's back as he aimed and was ready to fire, but didn't do it. That was just a girl after all. But he saw the harley and envied them for their fast and cool ride. _Pitchblack. Man I always wanted a harley. And it would fir my armours look. _With a once again filled holster he entered the car without roof. It seemed clean, except for green slime in the backrow. _Deja Vu, the same car. And even the keys stick. _He turned them and an engine came to life. "His" car went off the garage's front and almost hit a parking car. After that it sped over the street. _Yes good. Finally something wo- _"paff" the engine made its last breath and died. He got out and looked at the frontblock. _Oh great now even the machine's spirit hates me. _"Luckily" he had only made a few dozen yards so sprinted back to the house. After a minute of quick running he came into the garage. He spotted a very,very old and dustcovered scooter and looked at the keyhole. No key in. The shelf beside the old piss-yellow thing didn't bring up anything too. After a few minutes of searching around in any hole or shelf he gave up and looked at the old thing. A hefty kick against its wheels covered up a bit dust and something small fell down. He took and coughed. It was a key. _Wait I forgot the gas-mask! _After running back to the upper room and putting the mask on he felt like having forgotten something. He had forgotten to plug in its tube, which loosily hung over the chestarmory. After having made sure it would fit right he put the ammostripes into his backpack. Funnywise it had a small outlet at its bottomside. After unstrapping, downputting and opening the thing he saw that it had small hooks and guiding metalstripes. _Must be concepted for mg-belts. _He put in all the 5-round stripes and was impressed. Every stripe was in a line and he only had to pull them out of the outlet single each. He touched the three rounds that were seeable from underneat and pushed them a up. It felt out and dropped into his hand, another clip took its place, ready to be token itself. _Usefull. No wonder this armour doesn't have any pockets. _He ran downstairs, sat on the old scooter and turned the key. It started and he drove away. With an arkward EEEEEEEEE sound and minimal speed. _Hell I'm faster on a bike._ A black and wellarmed commando on a scooter. _The laugh._

---

Bonnie couldn't believe this was happening. It was so thrilling and her heart kept racing like crazy. It was so overwhelming. Leather under her body, cold rubbergrips in hands, and feet on a steelframe. And that Tara kept clutching her like in total fear made it even better. Every pore and nerve in her body wavered in total excitement. Her tongue was dry, her throat too, and heart and engine fought for dominance with their shockwaves that went through the body like it wouldn't be any barricade. Her luxurios brown hair flew and Bonnie felt the wind blowing against her face, a little bit cold but more than just refreshing. _That is SO great! No wonder Dad didn't buy a car for himself! _Another crossing came, but this time Bonnie braked and put her left foot to the ground, giving the motorcycle a halt.

"It's safe Tara! Come out!" She said while turning her head around.

"Really? Are we dead?"

"Yes and no."

---

"Okay." Tara opened her eyes again. Everything went past in a blur to. Everything was so...fast and intense. _Oh god please don't let her do this again! I'm scared to hell! _She frowned at the sight of the streets. _I don't know that block._

The engines constant hammering changed slowly, first it got a bit deeper, then faster and louder, more cutting and intense. And then it completely faded from view. It was dark, black and cold. _What is this? Some kind of... dream? Where am I? _Everything around her dark. One hand suddenly came infront of Tara's face. _HUH! oh just mine... wait... if I can just raise my hand like that...where is the motorcycle? And where is-_"BONNIE!" No response came. But somewhere she could hear echoes of her own voice: Unclear, putten into weird voices, different noises and strange reflections. "BONNIE! Where are you?" Tara shouted, this time a bit louder. But only again the echoes came back, this time louder, even more stretched in time and space, and she shuddered. "Huhhh cold." While gripping her arms she said.

"urrrr boml"

"Malll tangel"

"Zirrrr lrongel"

Tara startled. Those weren't echos. Those were new ones. And it was still so dark that she could, maybe, see one foot wide. Neither feeling nor view confirmed that her legs were still there. "Hello?"

"Urro! Milla- Fpnnzi?"

"What?"

"Bal? Ulia- Dorn!"

_Hmmm weird. This is so weird. We. I don't know why these voices mimikry me? We Tara. Maybe I should try it with..._

"Brotzel!"

"Fly- far. Away!" _Hmmm. Fly far away. Drown Tara. _The three voices sounded desperate. One more then the other.

"Haktzlbuer!"

"Live? Flee- Water!" _Maybe... flee from the water to live... strange. Water is the life bringing element. Drwon ew!._

"Aedebur!"

"Come! me. will-" _Me will come? That means: I will come. !araT wnord_

"Away- Time! fast." Tara felt everything around her fading... everything seemed to disappear like as if... just losing it's reality. _What-_

_Tara WE drown! Tara you drown! Hmmmm now what does that mean? I don't feel or see or water... wait my le-_

The ground underneath her was beeing enlightened, dimly, weakly, but just enough to see her legs and feet. Now she could see and feel them, but earlier they hadn't been...there. Like an untold story, like a forgotten chapter, just as names whispered in stormy december nights.

Just not there. But something else was there. Moaning, very far away and distant, it was the three voices again. Slowly the light became more intense, no, it spread out. First Tara saw her naked knees, the trousers were cut off somewhere abover them. She narrowed her eyes. _My legs are there. At least for as far as the light reaches. _It slowly kept spreading. For as far as that she saw water. Maybe just a few centimeters deep, but water. _Wow... how clear and... beatifull it is... so pure and nice. Almost healthy. _Her eyes un-narrowed again and the water spread out. The moans got louder and painfilled, Tara held her ears. _we drown you drown drown drown!  
_

She looked into the water. As she somehow admitted it's beauty and thought how nice it would be to take a swim it spread out immensly. Everything happened in under one second after that. She looked up since something...made her want to look up. It was a thousand cages, hanging at old rusty chains. One after another broke. Persons, only seeable as thin shapes, small and thin as wisps, but large and muscled like trolls, fell into the water. But they made no sound, no waves as they entered the water, it seemed to not even move or change. Then she saw the water. Moans, painfull, loud and many, came into her head. She looked down and held her ears again but this time the moans only got worse. Her eyes widened, water spread. Bodies, to the thousands, filled the water. All of them lay in the pose of one who drowned, arms outstretched towards the ground, legs too, the chest and stomach among the head somewhat hovering calmly. She couldn't see faces, everyone was in normal clothing, jeans were not rare. They lay in different depths and layers, but they were more then enough to barely let anything be seen but darkness. Not blackness, since blackness was total, absolute, perfect darkness. Nothing could penetrate perfect darkness. But this wasn't perfect darkness since the bodies weren't enough. And since there was still water. She looked down and saw something. Perfect darkness. _We drown! Fear drowning! _It was somehow blackness of a human shape. It went around her feet which she saw clearly now. She fell into the water, like gravity had changed, and the blackness went around her full body, except her head. It pulled her underneath the water and she futilly waved her arms in wild movements, tried to crawl and move but to no avail, the surface with it's light went away from her in amazing speed. Her eyes narrowed a bit and she started to cry but it didn't help. _Bonnie! _Her mind screamed and, surprisingly, the watercorpse of Bonnie Rockwaller appeared. Her dead girlfriend looked at her and she saw the emptyness in the face. Tara was already frightened very much but that made her fear for her very soul. She had feared before but now it was overwhelming, like an immense power inside her had claimed her body. Now she felt, sensed, knew it:

She was dieing. As she looked down from something to subtle to explain she saw that the bloodred, merciless eyes were drowning themselves, taking the black shape among, one of its arms waved like the one from an unconscious swimmer. Gripped by fear tried to move up, it worked a bit, two strides brought her closer to the surface somewhere lying inside eternity before she became unconscious.

---

"TARA!" Bonnie shook her friend strong and her eyes lit up filled with blank total fear. "I drowned Bonnie, I died!"


	27. Don't look to the eyes of a stranger

Hello there. Ever wondered why I don't say "dodge" or "block"? I think evade fits better. Comes from military flight language. Block would mean that an attack would be cut off from its supplies or be hindered from shooting or slahing BEFORE doing it. And dodge? That just doesn't make any sense to me. How should one "dodge" Shego's hellhot plasm-fists? WITHOUT getting heavy burnings? Can't they say something like "she rolled her body with the fists" or something? In fact we always see Kim and Ron evading. They go away from where the strike will hit. Same thing when one has an aim120 at his ass. Coincedince?

"Stay calm!"

"Ummm okay..." Tara mumbled back. They stopped infront of Tara's house, she jumped off and disappeared inside it. After a minute she came, with a duffelbag in her hand, back.

"All set!" Bonnie took that as the signal to drive. Only seconds after they left three figures stepped out of the frontdoor. They seemed to absorb any light around them and had firered eyes.

"I hope we get there in time!"

"We will!" Bonnie replied and turned the knob, further accelerating the harley. Fifteen minutes later they arrived at the opposite part of school, not seeing the front area. Both girls ran into the gym, which was the place where they would change dresses. After a few minutes door went open and both stepped in. A cheer greeted them:

"Bonnie!" "You're here!" "We thought we'd have to start without you!" Then they noticed Tara: "Hey Tara!"

The blond was used to be seen after Bonnie, but she didn't mind since she was seen at all. And that counted for her. She enjoyed beeing in the middle of attention sometimes but didn't push into it like others. "Hey girls." She cheered. Bonnie took her role as first cheerleader serious:

"Okay we'll do the figure we practised for all the weeks. But this time Kim won't be here. I'll take her spot and Tara mine. Since we lack two cheerleaders the second row will only be six of us. And there will be no brake between part one and two. Got it?"

"Yes!" All girls cheered in unison. Bonnie and Tara quickly switched dresses while all other girls left. Again the door flung open. "I told you Kim would screw up!" Bonnie said while they both giggled and left. Three black shapes entered the room from another door, unnoticed, and left after a few seconds of looking around,with their red eyes flaring through the darkness that surrounds them.

Bonnie and Tara walked through the high entrance of the Middleton stadium that lay only a block away from school. Tara enjoyed the feeling that rose inside her. It was a gentle tension, making her all warm inside. As she walked, right beside her best friend, pride filled her. _Bonnie might have been mean to others, but only she treats her true friends like_ _she treats herself: As Kings. That's why I like her so much. Deep in her heart she's thoughtfull and sensitive. And more than loyal to anyone who's nice to her. _Both girls smiled.

Bonnie's and her body went bright from light. It slowly crawled up their bodies, starting with their shoes and beautifull legs and ending with even more attractive young faces. They ran right, to where the other girls in purple-yellow stood, near a white line. Everyone took formation behind the goal of their own team: Mad dogs. Bonnie and Tara shared a reassuring look before the narrator spoke up:

"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to our all yearly Mad Dogs vs. Lowerton Lions festival! How will it come out this year? It'll thrill you all! Both Mad Dogs star-quarterbacks are not here but will this be enough to stop them? Especially with a that sexy support?"

That was their signal. All girls ran out in same speed, two of them jumped and made saltos in the air before they all formed two lines. Popmusic began to play from huge speakers. They all moved their pompons left and right while letting their hips go in the always different direction, making their delicate forms even more desirable. After that they started to turn threesixty degrees for many times while waving their pompons through the air and, after ending that stretched out their always left or right leg among their bodies towards the middle backrow and 'sat' down like as if kneeling infront of a king or queen. Tara and Bonnie stood in the place everyone directed to and stopped turning as well. Then all the other girls ran towards them, bent down infront of the two, who stood six meter away from each other for good reason, and threw them up. They turned in the air, flew to each others former position while waving their pompons and skirts in wild but astethic circles, made a salto each, landed on the green with doing the splits and waving their arms in perfect unison, one against and one with the clocks' tickers rythm, jumped up and were catapulted into the air by two girls each. Both made perfect backward-salti that made any male in the stadium stare with total amazement and lust at their exposed upper legs (and a bit more). The two meanwhile build pyramids got filled up with two 'throwers' each and caught Bonnie and Tara at their tops. But, that was not enough, since another secretly hidden manouver came after Bonnie and Tara held their two pompons towards the space between the two pyramids. Kim had planned that in just that moment Ron should stand there while shaking his costumed head like mad, which should make anyone laugh. But not this time. Instead Bonnie and Tara exchanged trustfull looks before beeing thrown up again, they flew towards each other, turned towards themselves and hugged during their descent. Then all other girls made a circle kneeling and pointing towards the center while both landed indendetly fell to the ground. Tara was just above Bonnie who hugged the other girls back while Tara threw her luxurios blond hair behind her neck. So they lay for over two seconds, intensively looking at each other, and stood up. They gripped their innersided hands, bent down like theater actors who thank their audience, threw their upper bodies up again with the other hands, who held the outer pompoms, waving up in a ninety degrees angle upwards like a radio antenna. Very loud they shouted in Unison: "That's what you'll get if you win Mad Dogs!"

Everyone stood up and gripped hands, bent down as one, got up while throwing up their hands and shouted: "And nothing if you lose!"

No sound came. Just as Bonnie and Tara had expected. And right as the entire audience stood up, but before they could clap, Bonnie and Tara drew secretely hidden whistles, which they had 'aqquired' from two male refferys after a bit convincing, and let the loud sound come. No one expected that to come, but the mad dogs, who had watched in total attention, started towards their opponents while the ball already flew. Said opponents were still startled, and couldn't react properly to the first attack. All the girls withdrew from the green field quickly since they didn't want to "accidently" get bumped at by players.

"Bonnie that was great!" One of the girls said to her friend while evading a frenzied mad dog. "Oh that's all Tara's idea!" Said blonde's cheeks went a bit red. At that. Again the narrator spoke:

"Well I guess I'm not the only who hopes that Tara is still single!"

She went red all over her face. Bonnie and her exchanged another happy look. Tara turned around to see how the game went. They were back at "their" goal at that moment. It wasn't correct by the rules to go over the playing field, but they didn't have to fear that the Lions would come to the Mad Dog's goal at that moment. Very loud clapping came from all the audience, accompanied by dirty shoutings from some males. Tara was filled with happiness. Not just for herself but also for her friend. Again the narrator: "Appearently cheerleading can work without Kim!"

And she was even happier at that moment. It wasn't like she would envy Kim, but Tara, among many others, believed that Kim got enough attention for saving the world all the time. Tara knew that Bonnie was the better cheerleader and team-captain. Bonnie WAS overcompetative but it wasn't fair that she didn't get the attention for beeing the best in the only thing she was the best. Only because Kim was more famous. She had sensed that from the first day but it really got confirmed when Bonnie had a sleepover at her house. She had said: "It's not fair! My sisters have trophys to show off, and I haven't! I always say I'm the best cheerleader but then they ask why I never get trophys! I want to have ONE damn thing to be better then my sisters at! That bitch has it all: a true boyfriend, trophys, an easy life and loving parents and brothers. And I only have divorced parents, egoistic mean sisters, too much pressure for even satan to stand sane and nothing to show off! She has a thousand prices why doesn't she let me have ONE! JUST ONE!" It had been the first Tara had seen her friend cry. And she hoped it would be the last time.

In that moment Bonnie was the best. Deservingly. She beamed with pride and happyness. And that seemed to radiate on all other girls, including herself. Happy chatter filled her ears among with the shouts from the audience and the sounds of a superbowl game.

But as she looked there, she felt like something wouldn't...fit. _Something's wrong in that picture. Something doesn't fit. _She looked intensively at the whole scene. The Mad Dog's colors mixed with those from the Lions. From Tara's viewpoint it was a wall of humans. Everything seemed to be allright, but somehow it wasn't. A subtle feeling told her that it wouldn't work out. _We drown...they said, run..._

"What's up Tara?" Bonnie noticed that her friend stopping and looking at the game thoughtfully.

"Something is wrong." Many other girls stopped, one of them spoke: "What? We blasted them off!"

"We drown... something doesn't fit..."

"Tara? Is something wrong?" Bonnie asked while looking at her worriedly and stepping closer.

"We should leave. Quickly." Tara turned around and was about to leave when Bonnie gently gripped her arm.

"Come on. We made such a rush so we can at least watch the game a bit!" Tara was about to protest as she saw something. She narrowed her eyes and stood still. All players had regained formation and were ready to go again, while forming a solid wall against looks. But that wall had constant holes. A few dozen centimeters space between 12 and 7, between 6 and 11, between 18 and 1. But something began to fill these holes. Not at the same height as the players, so not between them, further away from them but still in the same line of view. Like as if someone would simply put a few cheerleaders from the two lines and would place them at line four, which hadn't existed before, but would exist as soon as someone filled, created it. And behind the lines of players, not between them and her but on the opposite side somewhere on the green field, space began to be filled. First it looked like fog, black in color, thin and just as thick of the smoke a few cigarettes make, but then it started to whirl and twist, to become thicker and more, as long as shapes began to form in the air.

"Tara wha-" She quickly made a shh sound and put Bonnie's hand away. _We drown _Slowly the shapes became manlike. Was there an arm? Wasn't that almost a chest? And could that to the left maybe resemble a leg? The shapes became clearly humanlike but were still black as the darkest ash, the most far away space and _the deepest ocean! The thing that pulled me down_! Her eyes widened. _Could that be the figure from my... _It had not been a dream. It had been real. Her lower legs had not been at the beginning, just as water and the shape.

They seemed to step out of the fog, all six of them made one step forward at the same time, nothing clearly seeable except their red eyes that seemed to the only thing that could pierce their darkness. Even the floodlights could barely enlight them, it was like light would bent around them. Appearently it was too much light since small contures and corners, things and details came clearer. Or could be seen at all. And they stood there like as if not belonging into this world, to this time and space. But they were real, somehow. In perfect formation, perfectly same shapes. Nothing differed them, not one was shorter, thinner, standing differently or somehow else differed from the others. Also it seemed like they would be trained, shaped, engineered for perfect unison in all their doings. Something made Tara's heart sink.

"No"

Her face became the one of utter terror, the whistle came and everyone ran at each other, tackled, threw the ball or ran. Except them, it. As one group, unit and thing they raised long guns and flashes came. _No that- _Ugly whistles hissed passed her as loud sawing noises flew past her ear. No one had noticed them enter except her, then the other girls noticed it too. Some gave noises of shock like quick breaths or shocked no's. But nothing stopped the things from doing it. The sounds were almost deafeningly loud, as the weapons, held at what could be the hip, flashed in a speed too fast for the human eye to follow, spreading it's lead into the human bodies before them. It made a sickening sound: Almost like a saw, loud as hell but somewhat unspectacular and still recognisable: "Bdwlrwrwuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-" She couldn't keep the tears from running even before the lances of dark light shredded through bodies, flesh and football armour that rendered no protection. Everything happened to fast to witness entirely, only small chunks of information reached her brain when it happened. To the left someone lost his entire arm as six lances of thin light cut through it before another half dozen of lights smashed his entire chest intwo. Further right someone tried to run. But his legs were sawed off from bullets who smashed through a helmet before. It looked like a constant sawblade would stand underneat him horizontical in the air as he fell with only stumps were his prized fast runner's legs had been earlier. His entire body was cut in stripes comparable to a master cook who cuts too fast to see. All the lances found no resistance in muscles, bones, flesh and tissue as death itself cut through all them.

More then fourty lives in 1.231 seconds.

A few painfull screams came, namely two, one close to the exit where they stood, and one straight before them. The one close to the black wall had his entire jaw ripped off and hieved his hand to touch one of them in a helpseeking gesture. It simply lowered its rifle and shot him without looking down. His hand had not touched him as the corpse fell to the ground, never to rise again. The other was a player in clothing that was ripped to pieces as something dropped him. Tara was shocked. It was one of the black shapes that had used him as a human shield. Now that she focused on him she remembered how he was killed. It had gripped him from behind and had turned him around to hold him up with both hands, one on his back and the other on his neck. The first round cut through his right shoulder, spraying blood and bone into the air, another hit his upper chest, then torso, ribs, then skin again and after that armour that could resist. One more went into the left upperleg, small outflights of blood came in two straight lines, running upward his body, killing him before he could even feel the pain. At least Tara believed that. The black shape, a little bit less light absorbing and alone, stood behind the tall teenager. It had twitched back among with the blows and had made two slow steps backward. Then it moved behind again, sidestepping and dropping the old body. It's eyes didn't even have the time to get as empty as they should. It's broken and buttered bodie's eyes looked at her with a not even questioning expression. It looked like he would gonna ask her for a date just a second later. Both pairs of eyes were on her as she realised that 14 dark red orbs were fixed upon her.

_He died with a smiling thought. How sweet cyinc ironie can be._

_Did I just read it's thoughts? Wha- He runs for me oh god- _Tara's eyes widened as she realised that it was running to her. It first stepped over the dead teen's head and _Another corpse on my way _She stood still, amazed at herself. _I... can I?_

Her mind suddenly found the lines of and old song she had heard once on a rock-station:

"Don't look to the eyes of a stranger, Don't look through the eyes of a fool, Someones watching when the lights gone down."

_Maybe_ _if I look it into the eye... _She tried, this time concously, but it didn't work. _Hmmmm strange. Someone touches me...let's see. _She looked at Bonnie who stood in utter terror and towed at her arm. She understood and began to run. But not before looking at the things again. They all went moved left arms to their backs and came with small things in their hands back. But one seemed to vanish, back into the black dusk it had come from. The rest moved its arms in perfect unison. Then something else caught her attention. It was the other black shape running to her, it had a different weapon and even a small first aid bag. It's eyes were merciless and penetrating like the others.

_No they- _But they shot. It jumped, lances flew past it, towards her and the other futilly fleeing girls. Bonnie shouted and sparks flew from its armour as it seemed to gain speed in the air. It impacted her with a rifleholding arm while the other reached for Bonnie. She fell and saw the eyes directly over her. And she heard screams from the other girls, as lances flew abover her, as if she would be in a different layer of sky, temporarely safe, as the menacing black thing before her gazed into her. She felt...emotions. With the others she had felt nothing. She impacted the ground and the thing landed on her. She felt the head go beside hers and the arms somewhat touched her. They were cold. It's weight alone was already very painfull, bit single bumps came as it received more lances upon itself. When everything was over it got off from her and she sighed, totally in tears. _One of those murderers saved me? That's way too weird. Wai- BONNIE!_

Her eyes traced the thing stomp over the ground after throwing itself forward and up like a marathon sprinter_. It moves towards Bonnie! Oh no I couldn't stand it touching her! _

"Leave her alone! You've- (it picked Bonnie up and on it's left shoulder) done enough!" She stood up, her body felt completely numb. It ran with Bonnie on its shoulder towards the end of the corridor, attempting to get around the corner. "NO!" She ran at it, it turned around and dropped Bonnie to the ground. She slung a fist at it but to no avail. Before she could feel what happened it pressed her against the wall with both hands clutched around her upperarms. "Ge-" Again the sawlike Brwtuwuuuuuuuu sounds came, this time a faint bit closer. Loud bangs erupted on its back as her arms started to scream from pain. It gripped harder as more bangs came to it's back, rocking it forward, closer to her. She stepped back and was surprised that it let her. _Don't look to the eyes of a stranger-_

She hadn't heard it due to the immensly loud gunsounds but now it was clear. The thing screamed loudly while still holding her there. It fell to one knee, one arm shakily moved towards Bonnie, and she understood. She gripped and rested Bonnie on her back while slowly going forward.She could only take big single steps since Bonnie really put weight on her small frame. But it worked. Again the sounds came, just as loud bangs, whistles as lances hit the walls and bounced off from them, only to fly further into the early day. It screamed loud and painfull, and she heard it taking very heavy breathings, which sounded very weird. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity she made it around the corner. It followed before new lances could come. She put Bonnie down and looked at her. One shoulder was covered with blood. _Oh god that--- _She felt it looking at her while resting on the wall. She understood when her eye caught its red orbs. She hefted Bonnie and made her way towards a car that came closer. She understood it would bypass her since the driver would be late for work. "Please! Help us!" But it already started to drive around her. Her heart sank once again, as she realised Death would come only because of one man's egoism. Suddenly it stopped roughly and the driver got out. Tara wasted no time and opened the left backdoor. She saw, through the open door, that it pointed at a pistol at the man's head and shot. His blood flew on another car's engineblock, it quickly drove backwards, turned fast and went away. She dropped Bonnie on the seats and wanted to get in herself as its red caught her eyes. She understood. It looked to the engineblock and moved, she got out of the door herself and saw two black shapes. One hived up what seemed to be the ultimate weapon to her and he made it just in time to take it's barrel away from pointing at her and fired into its face twice. It pulled the gun from the things hands, who seemed to have released due to the firing, and it sidestepped around the thing. While making a half circle around it it fired two more shells into it. Then it touched it's back while shooting another round into the unhelmeted neck. She, meanwhile, had made it to the drivers door and got in. It's both eyes were no longer red but only black as the rest of it's aura.

She looked at the three pedals. One would be for switching gears, one for accelerating and one for braking. It stood there, still like a rock, but the red dots slowly returned. They grew in color every moment. The other it got into the other backseat and threw the hefty gun and what seemed to be a backpack on the front passengers seat. She looked into the red orbs once again, this time through a small mirror.

She understood and hit a pedal. It bent over Bonnie and the other it hit the still open sidedoor and closed it as she drove on. After about one second of driving the outside it turned around and looked at them with regained red "passion". It was about to unstrap something from its upperleg while putting the pistol back, when she asked:

"Where to?" _Strange...my voice doesn't sound_ _so...emotionless normally._

It didn't look at her and instead put out a bandage from it's bag. _Uh, duh. Silly me. The only Hospital in Middleton of course._

Don't look to the eyes of a stranger...


	28. In the hospital and on the way to it

Hello people. Reviews would be nice. Really.

Henry got transported into the operating room. Two bulky whiteclad men carried him there while he sleepily tried to resist. "Bonnie...where is she?" One of the men said: "Your wife will surely be here soon."

"She ain't my wife she's my daughter you moron!"

"Stay calm mister." And Henry had to do as the morphine kicked in. But before vanishing behind a doublewinged door he reached Ron a cellphone.

"This' chiefs number call hiumm." Then his head slumped down and the doors closed.

Ron looked at the device and noticed Kim looking at him. He caught her eyes and she looked away in the first moment. He frowned and she spoke:

"Something wrong Ron?"

He pretended to be surprised from her question: "Mr. Rockwaller gave me that cellphone and said I should call a 'chief'. "

She frowned in thought, pulled out her Kimmunicator and waved Ron to come closer. Everyone else sat down on chairs and began to chitchat.

"Wade?"

Wade's picture came. "Hi Kim. What is it?"

"You found something about that Chief? And Henry Rockwaller?"

"Oh yeah." He typed too fast to follow. "The one is a police-department chief and everyone only calls him chief-"

"Can you tell us something new Wade?" Ron asked, not meaning it bad. Kim shot him mean look. Wade went on:

"Yes. It seems like he would have been especially much investigating in a certain area of Upperton. There had been a huge mass-murder two years ago. And the other is a man named Henry Rockwaller: I can't get any infortmation about him that is not two years old."

Again Ron: "Hey I see a connection!"

Kim snapped back sarcastically: "Ron, who doesn't?"

He made a sad face and put the cellphone up. "I have a cellphone with that chiefs number. Henry told me to ph-"

"You MET henry Rockwaller?" Wade asked excited.

"Yeah. What's the thrill?"

"He is THE leading genetics and bacteria researcher! He is the mekka of all bug and gene interested people!"

"He seemed pretty normal to me. Can you...trace his position or something otherwise computerlike?" He said and typed into the air.

"Sure call him and I find out where he is."

Kim came between. "Okay Wade I'll call that man while you trace the phonecall." Then she turned to Ron: "Ron give me the-"

Ditt-dutt-dott-ditt-dutt... She frowned angrily as Ron held the phone at his ear: "Ron I-" but Ron simply said "Shhhh". Kim stood there dumbfounded. _Did Ron just shhh me? I told him to give me the phone and-_

"Hello?" A small gruntnoise came from the phone as Ron turned away from Kim to get better hearing.

"Henry's injured in the hospital and told me to phone you." She looked back at the Kimmunicator as it beeped in her hand.

"What's the sitch?" She said, sounding less motivated than intended.

"Something wrong Kim? I found the place."

"Ron shhhhd me and thank you."

"Well maybe he shhhd you because you tried to grab the phone from him?" Kim looked amazed. "Yes! How do you know?"

Wade took a sip from his soda. "Maybe 'cause HE should phone that chief and felt a bit...lead in strings by you."

"What?"

"You got me right. Maybe he was happy to be in the middle of attention for once. And he wants to show you he isn't just a useless goofy sidekick."

Kim was truly shocked to the bone. "But...but... our relationship!"

"He isn't gonna run away from you and he didn't want to hurt you. I'd be pretty pissed from beeing bossed around all the time, too."

"You mean...I boss him around?" Kim asked. Wade gave her an irritated look. "He didn't tell you?" She shook her head.

"Hmmm(Wade stroke his chin)He thinks you are hurt if you can't control things so much. So he's basically holding back so you have it easier."

Suddenly Ron came closer. He sounded sad. "Kim he wants to speak with you."

She smiled at him warmly and took the phone. "Yes?"

"Can you (thumm) get the ar-(highptiched whistle and someone shouts "incoming") my here? We need rein- (thummmm) forcements right now!"

"Rei-"

"We're bleeding out! Almost out of ammo, enemy keeps advancing! We can't hold out for 15 minutes longer without backup!"

"What do you-"

"Contact all military and police forces (a look at the Kimmunicator showed that it fell out of her hand, and a huge green light filled the room) that you can get here! Entire Middleton will die if not! And after that the entire wor- (a loud hammering, very fast and loud overtoned his words)

"Ummm I can get global justice- (Someone screamed : "Incoming!" and the hammering stopped, a thummm came, among a vibration that shook her entire hand, the thumm was much louder than before and the green light formed into some sort of holopicture, screams came out of the phone and she held it away from her ear)

"What is that?" Od said while he stood up and joined the circle of people who looked at the picture. She came closer and saw it.

Everything had a green undertone but it could be a policechase in tv where the cameras are in a helicopter. Two buildings, appearently old, stood on two sides of a street. Between them were two truckcontainers thrown over. One long fitting against one wall, one looked like someone would have stuffed it parallel with the other wall into the gap. The same was on the other side of the about 40 meter long buildings. Then the "camera" went closer and showed the building from the sides. Windows, always two at a number, had been nailed close to only show small lines. Out of these lines barrels pointed out and their muzzleflashes rattled towards something that was still out of view. Men, most of them cops, ran with downbent backs among the "wall" that connected both buildings and two carried one person towards a door. From time to time they shot, but suddenly all activity died down, including the muzzleflashes as everyone outside the buildings threw themselves on the ground. Two huge explosions erupted, one on the roof of the building infront of view, the other inside what seemed to be an inner yard. And as sudden as the firing had died down it came back to life. Then the view came closer. It showed a man in a dirty and bloodcovered police uniform who dragged a lifeless man without lower legs towards one of the doors on the first floors inner yard. With one arm through the bodies armpit and the phone between the other shoulder and his head he shouted around while dragging the body further. Kim suddenly realised that it was her phone he spoke into:

"We take heavy casualties! The mortars are getting more and more precise every second! We can't hold them from making townfall!"

"Where are you?" She asked worriedly.

"In the old warehouse district! Get backup here or we all will die!" Kim shuddered at the thought. "Okay I'll do my best." She said and pressed the off button, withdrew the Kimmunicator from the ground and saw Dr. Director coming close and taking it from her.

"Wade give me connection to GJ headquarters!" Wade typeed a few orders and Will Du's face appeared. "Will?" He looked heavily bandaged in the face but could speak back:

"What is it? Oh I had a teleporting thingy from a mission. I couldn't return it it to the quartermaster in time."

Betty shook off the confusion. She had to be serious. "Get any agent to Middleton warehouse district. There is a fight going on against a major force of unknown enemies and we must save the police forces."

Will smiled. "And again we are the caval-"

"It's WAR out there Will and these people are dying to halt a superior enemy! I want you personally to lead the evacuation of Middleton. Get any citizen to Lowerton! And I want level three armament. Even the prototypes!" Will's face went wide: "The...protos?" Betty nodded.

Kim spoke up: "Okay everyone to the hovercar! Connie you stay with your dad!" Everyone stood up except Shego and Drakken.

"Who made YOU the boss princess?" Shego said calmly, not looking up from her magazine.

"Shego there's no time for leadership fights!"

"Oh really? Well I'm not gonna follow a teenager into war."

That must have been the moment to blow the bottle. A gentle tension had lain over the group, a feeling of distrust. It was feelable like an aura or even more like dusk that hung in the air. But now that Henry, their leader, was out of action, everything crumbled. And in that moment Ron was the one who surprised them all.

"Shego I know you want to kill me, Kim and Dr. Director. But think about this: What world do you want to take over if we all fail? A world filled with rotting zombies? And even IF you make it out of town alive where do you want to live when mankind dies? In your oceanleair? Well you'd need a completely autharc energy, food and gas supply. And you don't have that. And keep in mind: If these cops die about sixtythousand zombies will smash this town faster than you can run away. And how do want to GET to your lair at all? When no one builds replacement parts for airplanes, when no one keeps them operative, and where shall your food come from if civilization and it's knowledge dies? Think about it: We all must work together. I still don't like this all but I made it to come out with Drakken. And remember the time we helped you get team Go back?"

Shego put her head back and thought. _What? Oh...think... ah yes that moronic crap. _An evil smile crept up Ron's face. She looked at him shocked and waved her hands in defense.

"You-you won't! You wouldn't DARE!"

His smile broadened. "Oh I can dare many things. I bet Dr. Director would think of it as very interesting what I could say..."

Betty looked at him in mild curiosity: "What could you say?"

"Nothing! Nothing serious!" Shego threw in with fear in her voice.

"Oh I think your past IS serious Shego. But don't worry, as long as you stay everything's fine."

"You...YOU EVIL MAN!" She shouted. Suddenly his smile dropped and a voice, cold and ordering, took over:

"I'm not evil I make sure everyone remains loyal. Now get in the car."

Everyone stood up and moved back to the overcar, including Shego. Drakken was beside her as she let her head sink in defeat.

"Hey what is it?" He asked. A loud sigh was the answer. "Don't worry we pay them back when we rule the world!" Shego slowly looked up to him. "I'll work harder okay? And I knew from the beginning that you've been -" His lips were pressed together by a green hand.

"Say that and you're a dead man!" She snapped at him quiet enough to not let anyone else hear it. He looked at her hand with fear and then into her eyes. He quickly nodded and her hand let loose.

"Erm I-" He tried to explain but was quickly cut off.

"Shut it Doc!" She shouted at him, thankfully everyone else was outside at that moment. He went a bit small at that and stepped back. After a loud and angry grunt Shego stomped out of the hospital. Drakken was alone with his thoughts. _But...I justed wanted to make her ease up a bit. It's not fair. Everytime we lose because of my plans she shouts at me like hell. But when we lose because she couldn't keep the buffoon from getting to the selfdestruction she shouts at ME too! She always just shouts at me...no matter if I do something right or wrong it's all wrong to her. _Then poor Drakken sat down on a couch and withdrew the pistol he had with. _Maybe she thinks I'm not doing something wrong when I learn to handle that one_. _I wonder if she would care about it if I'd just work with someone else for a few hours or days. She'd been musing about a few days off anyway. _He looked into the barrel and quickly dropped it back to his lap, remembering what Henry had shouted at him. _That Henry doesn't have Shego against her. I bet it's so because he's a strong leader. He doesn't let his lips get pressed close and_ _isn't beeing beaten by her. AND she doesn't shout_ _at him all the time. _The front door opened. _Maybe I should just try to be a strong leader too._

---

"How's Bonnie?" Tara asked while looking into the small mirror that hung before, above her and between the frontseats. It gave no answerr. Insted it looked at her left shoulder. Its movements froze for a second before Bonnie got pulled up and into her seat.

"Will she be okay?"

Bonnie grunted and her eyes opened slowly. She spotted the thing looking at her and screamed. "Tara help!"

"He's okay he saved us! And he's gonna treat your wound."

"No! NEVER!" It took a small round dose and looked at it, then back at Bonnie. She began to shiver slightly.

"Bonnie he isn't one of them! I saw him killing one of those!"

Bonnie still not convinced, kept staring at the black mean looking commando. _No way that thing is gonna touch me! It's so...mean! _To Bonnie the sharp plates, mean cuts and the fact it had a rifle on its shoulder whose knife was bloodcovered were clear signs. After what seemed to be an eternity Tara spoke again: "Okay Bonnie I have to drive, and he looks like a trained medic. And if he does anything I'll make him regret it." She narrowed her eyes at the last sentence and the subtle undertone of violence was in her voice again.

"But...but-"

"Don't worry Bonnie I'll watch out. I promised you to always be there."

Bonnie gazed at it again, then back to her friends nice and warmly smiling face. "If you touch me at you-know-where I'll beat you to hell!" She snapped at the thing. Which didn't move. "And stop staring at me like that! You give me the creeps!" It nodded and let one hand make a half circle. She frowned at him irritated.

"I think he wants you to turn around Bonnie."

"Oh yeah? Can't he speak for himself?" _Stupid black thing I won't let you touch me! Especially not with those eyes!_

"Bonnie he saved our two lives! If he wanted to kill us he'd already done it!"

Bonnie looked at it intensively and slowly turned around. It took her left upper arm in one hand and she flinched. It's grip softened a bit but still moved her arm up. _You little bastard how DARE you- wh-what is that? _Her arm had a cut at the inner side, its hand put white cotton around it. Every turning of it's gloved hands made her shiver. And everytime it tried to touch her less without letting the bandage get too loose. _What does that guy think! He can't just touch people! _Her arm was putten up again. Tara watched everything with eagle's eyes.

But for Bonnie it wasn't over with a bandage. The figure looked at her side while she sat there with her arms crossed. It stopped and seemed to be deeply in thoughts. Tara thought: _I wonder what he thinks... maybe I can try to understand again. _She looked at one of its eyes as it suddenly turned around and looked into the mirror. She understood.

"Bonnie you have to remove your top. He can't put a bandage otherwise."

"WHAT!" Was her shocked answer. It seemed to know about that fact but didn't seem to be happy with it too. "NEVER!" Bonnie screamed and crossed her arms before the chest protectively. It simply kept standing still. _Ohhh this way to tough for Bonnie..._

"Can't you do that? I mean IT can drive TOO!" _Right but... _Tara bit her lower lip. That was true for a part but Bonnie didn't know it all.

"I know... but-"

"BUT? NO BUT!" _I think Bonnie has to be convinced otherwise. Hmmm let's see. _

"I know that's difficult but you have a wound at your midsection and -"

"What? Really?" It nodded just as Tara. Bonnie screamed at it: "YOU WERE NOT ASKED!" _Bonnie you don't make it easier._

"Bonnie we are hunted by massmurderers and don't have the time to stop. Besides we're only going to hospital to get your dad!"

"But I'm injured!"

"Not heavily, Bonnie. That you woke up so fast shows it."

Bonnie was near to the tears: "But Tara!"

Said Blonde slowly turned around and smiled at her. "Don't worry, I trust that man. And he will remove his mask." If it was unhappy with that it was not to see, but Tara felt something, even through the emotional barrier it's armour build. Not annoyance. Fear. _He...fears removing the mask? Why? It's not like we would shout at him...at least not me. _

"Yeah put that stupid mask away!" She shouted and it looked at her with its merciless red blazing eyes. She cowered in fear. Hands went behind its head and staggered. Then it nodded.

"Later?" Bonnie said quietly. It nodded.

"Do you... promise to... not hurt me? And to not...touch me? And that you look away?"

It nodded slowly, she looked at Tara, who also nodded. Then she turned and put the cheerleadertop off while it looked out of the window. _Poor Bonnie. I wish I could do this and not him. _She looked at the cut at her left side. It went through the side of her bra's side holder underneath her armpit but didn't touch her bosom. Then she gulped and crossed her arms before her chest and started to shiver. Both from cold and the expected thing. Her entire body tensed and she let out a muffled sigh. Then gloved fingers slowly raised her bra's holder and slowly put a piece of white cotton between it and her skin. It burned terribly as it carefully pressed it against her skin. Small tears ran down her cheeks, but stopped and made space for mild confusion as she felt hands on her shoulders, gently pressing upon it. Bonnie's head turned around and she saw that it reached her the top while looking away. She took it on and turned around. It looked at her and she felt like the red eyes wouldn't try to burn into her soul this time.

"Better." She said, it nodded, took a long piece of cotton and pretended to make itself an armsling. "Okay." She extended her arm and it's hand touched her. She flinched a bit and its hand went back for a few millimeters. Then it took her arm with a gentleness that surprised her and turned the cotton around her shoulder and armpit twice. She frowned, but made more space for him to operate.

"Ummmm...sorry for shouting at you." She said quietly while looking at her arm, which was gently pressed against her chest. The cotton turned around her hand's wrist and went over her chest. She eyed it carefully and saw with satisfaction that the man didn't try to secretely touch her breasts. Then it fixed the armsling at her shoulder and carefully pressed the lower arm more against her chest.

"Should I keep my arm like that?" She asked. He nodded. Again it pressed the upper arm to the chest and it, once more, moved back.

"I guess you are to keep your upper arm pressed against your body neatly but the lower relaxed." Tara said.

Bonnie looked at her in surprise. _Oh... Tara's still there too. Totally forgot about her._

"See? Strangers can be nice. Didn't feel that bad did it?" _Oh yeah? Well how about YOU get touched like that by a stranger!_

"Oh...yeah." Suddenly something impacted her face, she blinked and saw that he tried to wipe off an old tear from her cheek. He quickly withdrew his hand and started to put the bandage back again as she caught his arm. _One can ask you dumbass. No not... dumbass. Just not...smart._

"No its okay!" He looked at her and staggered. _Is he confused?_ Red eyes went to Tara, who pretended to look at a car or two.

"It's okay do it I was just...surprised." _Wait...A guy in menacing looking armour is insecure? Weird. _

She let her arm go and he slowly wiped off the old tear, faintly touched her chin and turned it. _Doesn't feel...bad. Somehow. _

"You look like a young couple!" Tara said while looking over the seat as they stood at a crossing. She smiled evilly.

He just looked at her and Bonnie stammered: "Errr umm-" While becoming red in the face. Tara laughed. _I wonder what he looks like under that mask. Maybe...does he hide behind that mask? Does he fear me? It would make sense with the faint touches and stuff. _Bonnie studied the black shape before her. It put back the medicine and bandages and got out its pistol after that. _Strange. Now he seems so different from how he was just a few seconds ago. He looks selfsecure and like he'd know what he does. And he looks so... cold. So... rejecting. I wonder if he would reject me. No of course he would! Silly me. That's a grownup man. I bet he has his wife waiting for him at home. And kids. _Her head was down and a sad expression went over her face. Suddenly a finger moved her chin up and she looked at him...or it. It's pistol was in the hand but his triggerfinger at her chin. _Does he...worry about me? Is that possible? _

"I'm okay. Really!" It's finger did not release her chin and instead his head moved a bit aside and downwards to her. "Really! Just much stress lately!" He padded her "healthy" shoulder and then got back to checking his pistol. _Wow he does care for me and stuff. Looks like he wouldn't be an emotional blank.  
_

"We're here!" Tara spoke and stopped the engine. They got out and Bonnie stood before the huge hospital. Tara approached her. "Hey seems you got a new boyfriend!" _What! Never! He wouldn't like me. And I don't even know him._

"No way! I bet he has wife and kids. And I'm just some teenage queen with complexes who keeps shouting at him." Bonnie sounded sad.

"I promise you it won't be that way!" Tara spoke with her always optimistic voice. _Oh yeah sure. Like all the other boys who said they'd be different and sensitive and that they'd do anything for me._

The brownhaired beauty looked at her in disbelief: "You know who is underneath that...shell?" _Tell me tell em tell me!_

"Ummm" Tara playfully touched her chin "I only say I wouldn't be surprised if it would be a certain someone..."

"Who?" KLUNK _What was that? Oh-_

Both turned around to see the shape with a huge machinegun, which it carried righthanded on its shoulder while lifting a huge backpack from the ground with the left. _Oh just him dropping something. I really wonder who that truly is. _

Tara gave a conspirative and slyish smile. "Curious, huh?" Bonnie nodded a bit.

_---_

_I bet she would respect me more if I would be stronger and stuff. And I bet the ranting unnerves her. And maybe I should build deathrays that are simple handguns. Or maybe... Nanobots! Even smaller than the explosive tick and aggressive... yes..._

Drakken looked up and went to the reception. _I should discuss that with Henry. I bet he can help me in become better and stronger and stuff. Or he can just tell me how to lead people the way he does. _

"Errrm...Miss?" _Oh yeah great beginning. She's gonna crap her pants from fear._

The reception lady, more a teenager in white cloth with pink hair, sat loosily on a chair. _Oh great one of those punk-snots again._

"Hmm?" She looked up.

"Could you tell me where I can find Henry Rockwaller?"

"Name please." Way more polite and ready to help than Drakken had expected. But resisting.

He frowned, since no resistance had been expected. "Doctor Drakken!" The blue man said while trying to look menacing.

"Sorry mister, you are neither personal nor relative, so I may not let you in." She said with a polite voice. _WHAT? Not let ME in?_

"Well lady do you want me to come back with a gigantic army of destructobots or throw you out when I rule the world?" His eyes narrowed.

She simply arched a brow. "Sorry mister I may not let you in. And if you insist further I will have to call the security." That dumbfounded him. _No one resists ME!_

"But-but-but" He stammered with one raised finger.

She simply shook her head. So the great Doctor Drakken, defeated by a teenage nurse-in-training, went out of the building while swearing at himself. _What do I do wrong? WHAT?_ _This is so depressing! If Shego would be here that snot wouldn't dare that! Shego... I wonder where she is. _He came closer to the frontdoor and it opened, revealing the, to him, most menacing sight ever.

A Black figure, totally black except a small green bag, held a huge gun on one shoulder and bend down to grab a backpack with the other. It's firered eyes stared at him in pure bloodlust and he froze immediatly. _Oh god make Shego comes please! SHEGO!_

It passed by without looking at him and went to the reception. Two teenage girls in skimpy uniforms ran past him while he calmly walked.One of the girls, wearing an armsling and brown hair, said something to the receptionlady.

"Name please?"

"Bonnie Rockwaller." The woman was about to type something when she spotted the black devil. "Excuse me mister but firearms are not allowed. I must insist that you leave now." It simply looked at her but she didn't freeze or shiver like he had done. Drakken shouted at the group:

"I tried to get past her so you won-"

It dropped the backpack, gripped her head and thrusted it on the table very hardly. "Where?" She struggled for breath and stammered: "Sec-Securi-" BAMM Again her head made contact with the desk. After two breaths she typed on her keyboard. "R319" It took the backpack and moved towards an elevator. _What does that man have what I don't have? WHAT? _He ran after the figure and the two girls who gave him looks as he approached.

"Ummm I'm Henry's friend you could say..."

He "apologized" to the both who stared at him with narrowed eyes. Red-eye suddenly reached him the hand and he shook it. Both girls looked totally dumbfounded at that. They got into the elevator and drove up, no one spoke a word. After that they got out and the two teenage girls ran to the door while Drakken tried to copy the man's way of walking. They got into the room and he saw that the blond stood, with a warm expression, before an in bed lying man who got hugged by the brownhaired girl. It dropped on a chair and sighed loudly while the chair almost broke under the weight.

"Daddy!" The brownhaired girl said. _That must the girl Henry meant earlier. _

"Bonnie my girl you made it! Great!" He hugged her back, a huge bandage was strapped above his eye.

"Why did you leave dad?" She released the hug. _Oh please stop that stupid kitshy crap!_

"Ummm I had an accident with a... blowtorch." _No you have been hit by Shego! _As he was about to say something Tara looked at him. He got the hint. Drakken might be a bit childish, naive, egocentric AND a fool but not stupid.

"So you met my friend hmm?" Henry said while critically looking at the bandages of his daughter.

"Friend? Oh yeah!" Both looked at the exhausted devil on the chair and Bonnie hugged her dad again.

"Put your mask off no gas in here bud!" He said. It did as ordered, looked to the ground, so that his helmet blocked view and after that looked at them without mask.

"I told you my girl would get you away from suicide!" Henry said happily, not seeing the empty face. _Suicide? Whow that is...harsh._

"She was the one who made me consider it." _A TEENAGER? What the hell? How can a teenager be more menacing then ME? _Bonnie turned around to look.

Numb eyes caught hers as she recognised the face. It was the person she had rejected and hurt, it was the runner. "You...YOU?"

He nodded. "It was me all the time."

"What do you mean all the time?" Henry asked while worriedly looking at his still-frozen daughter.

Tara took that as signal. "Bonnie got saved on a party and he saved me too. But Bonnie kept mocking him after he had to kill a deadly injured girl. He started to cry as Bonnie kept on and ran away." _Cry? Why the hell is a crying teenager stronger than me? How?_

"Not only after that. Before too." Max said.

"That's... not good. Bonnie why didn't you tell me that you met my comrade?"

---

_HIM? But...why didn't he say something?_ _Does he hate me? Why did he save me then? _"I...I..."

Again Tara: "Josh, her freshly splitten boyfriend, died when they met."

_And I blamed him for that...Oh god he must hate me... _ "I...umm"

"Be quiet Rockwaller. You only make it worse." _For you? Oh how should I explain... _"I..."

"Right. You always come first in your mind." _But...How should I have known?_

Henry, who had listened quietly until then, spoke: "Okay people that won't bring us further. I want you all to stay calm and explain what happened. And then we can start to sort out this mess." _Mess? This is an UBER-MESS!_

"Where is the rest and the fight; How do I reload this mg42 and how the m96; is this armour regenaritive?" Max asked. _Nothing about me? Maybe...maybe he doesn't hate me!  
_

"Not that. How this all happened he wants to know." Tara said. Henry looked away.

"Henry knows the answers." Drakken said. _But that's not important now! _And Henry bit his lower lip.

"Do-Do you hate me?" Bonnie blurted out. _Please say no, please! _He shook his head. _Oh god yes! Maybe If I apologize and-_

"You took any emotions from me. Hatred is one of them." _Oh no it's even worse! _

"Folks... I'l explain now." Henry said while looking up again. All eyes except two numb ones looked at him. "Wait- Drakken you should have left with the others!"

"Oh I... err." He tried to explain. _Like that would be important now!_

"Reasons are not important." Max said. _Not in this case._

Henry seemed to agree. "Okay so... I've been the headscientist for a goverment project. It should produce the ultimate warrior by using genetic manipulation, a bacteria and insectoid elements. We made it to create a virus that embedded a bacteria into the human body. That bacteria made humans faster, stronger and more resistant. However a sideeffect was that...the bacteria was a parasite that took over its victims to feed on them. As the bacteria entered the human brain it must have learned that it can feed on others by using its host."

"Means that Undead and all sorts of overpowered Bioweapons slaughter mankind."

"They attack, not slaughter-"

"A descendant of Upperton says that. How cynic."

"Would you please stop to interrupt him?" Drakken asked the blackclad teenager.

"Well...my boss got more and more...excentric. He started to use bums and homeless people to experiment on."

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt you!" Bonnie suddenly spoke. "Really... I was...stupid-I'm sorry!" _Why was he so gently then?_

Henry asked: "Honey? What for?"

"I-" She began but got interrupted: "-stand guard outside. The black men will come soon." Max got out with his mg42 in hands.

"Black men?" She asked. _There are MORE like him? Don't tell me all the nerds and geeks hav united against me..._

Tara answered: "They attacked us and he narrowly saved us from them."

Henry nodded. "Drakken please join Max outside." Drakken frowned but obeyed.

"Now Honey you and your friend explain me what happened." Henry, just the loving father, gently insisted for an explanation.

Tara began: "We went back to the schoolgym because we had an important game to cheer at. After a nice ride with your Harley we dressed up and performed. Then we were about to leave as six black shapes in similar clothes to his (she pointed to the door) somewhat... appeared on the field and shot everyone. We ran, but Bonnie and me would be dead now if he wouldn't have took bullets for us. After that he helped me carry Bonnie to a taxi and stopped it by shooting the driver. (Henry's eyes widened) One of the shapes appeared in front of the car and he somewhat shot it dead. But it didn't stay dead, it turned after us and walked after our car. Luckily he had stolen it's gun and ammo."

"Hence the mg...42? And the backpack right?"

Tara nodded and went on: "During the ride he bandaged Bonnie's injuries-"

"And I kept shouting at him for that!" Bonnie threw in.

"How did you get in I mean that wom-"

"He made her kiss the table." Henry frowned, looked down and said: "You mean-"

Tara nodded and Henry took a deep breath. "Then this IS bad."

"Dad? If... I mean... if a girl makes a boy run off...do you think that...that boy will accept an appology? Even when he cried?"

Henry thought at that for long. "If you stay nice and prove him that you're sorry: Yes." She smiled and hugged him again.

"But it will be difficult if you consider his background honey." _I don't care! I at least want to make him forgive me!_

The door opened and Drakken came in, the long k98 rifle in hands and with fear in the face. After him Max walked in, without mask but still with the same calm but determined steps.

"They attack. We must evacuate immediatly."


	29. Hospital clash

Kim sat on the end of the hovercars cargoarea. Which made a good transport since it had three rows of always two seats.

"Ron why did you cut me out earlier?" She asked Ron, who sat beside her.

"I heard something and missed it because you said something in that moment." He explained.

"And why did you do the call anyway?"

"Because...look KP Henry said I should phone that chief and...you aren't me right? I mean you were once but not now."

"But I told you to give me the phone!" Kim said while sounding a bit confused.

"I...(he looked down) didn't want to disappoint Henry. I mean cause of not doing what he says and stuff."

"Really? Why?"

"You saw what he was about to do with Shego! And I mean if that guy can make Drakken and me work together?"

That confused her even more. "So you think he's a better leader than me?"

Ron staggered for a moment: "Ummm. No. It's just... he seems to know what he's doing and-"

"I don't know what I'm doing then?" She narrowed her eyes at him. Again.

He waved his arms and sought for words. Then he stopped. "No...yes-I mean. Look KP it's just that-"

"I'm listening Ron."

He sighed. "It's just...you're...a good chearleader."

Kim frowned. "So?"

"It's just... he makes me do things whose sense I understand without bossing me around all the time an- I mean you don't bos-"

"Aha. (She looked away) So it's true what Wade said. You're braking up with me then?"

His eyes widened: "NO! You're the best friend in the world! KP... Our world saving stuff is just not the same you see?"

"Oh. (She rolled her eyes) We're not saving the world then?" She let her chin sink on an elbow and looked at the landscape.

"Ummmmm. Just not the way we usually do. And... we don't fight against weird scientists! I would never leave you alone!"

"Oh." She still didn't look at him. Until a hand carefully touched her chin. She turned and looked into Ron's very worried face.

"KP I saw...very bad things happen to people and I don't want the same happen to you. You're my best friend! I couldn't live without you!"

Her face softened a bit. "What do you mean bad things?" He looked a bit to the ground at that. She followed with her head and saw a small tear forming in his eye. She came a a bit closer and he looked at her a bit shocked. "Ummm. KP...just..."

"What Ron? You can tell me anything you know that." He straightened his face, took a deep breath and spoke: "That...that big thing-and-it-came closer...and I kept shooting at it and..." _Shooting? You shot at something?_

Kim looked at him with softer eyes at that moment. Then he suddenly hugged her and started to sob: "It...Killed Lonnie and Bonnie's mom and almost us all too and we ran and it slashed at Lonnie and shot Helen and and..." She closed her arms around his back and started to pad it carefully. Her face was still filled with surprise at Ron's outbreak. _Ron cries? Now THAT is something unusual._

"I-I don't want to lose you Kim!" _So that's why he did that all... and stupid me thinks he brakes with me. How should he?_

"And and Henry said more come to town and stronger and more and-" Kim made a shhh sound and laid his head on her shoulder. After a minute Ron stopped sobbing and she let him sit again.

"Sorry Ron I over...reacted. Wade's right that I boss you around too much. And... I saw weird stuff too, Ron."

He sniffed. "What for stuff?"

Kim closed her eyes and brought back the pictures. "Cops who were no cops, attack that criminal and..."

"Just take a deep breath that helps." Ron suggested. She did as said.

"And then these cops get butchered by that criminal but before it gets to me the criminal comes and shoots himself!"

Ron arched a brow. "How?" _You're not asking why? Maybe he's beyond saying I'd be crazy. One good thing from that bodyswitch._

"First he was faster and stronger than Shego and killed the swat-men and took a shot without stopping. Then it gets hit by something and that guy stands there with a shotgun and shoots at...itself!"

Ron nodded and kept looking at her. _I love these eyes...always so nice and caring and_- _NOOO! Focus not now and not again!_

Kim looked to the ground and then up into his eyes again. Before losing herself inside them she went on: "That thing got hit again and then he slammed his rifle into it, shot and it died. And on the ground lay some sort of...skelleton with SOOO long claws!"

She moved her hand from an elbow to the other. Ron's eyes widened. _He doesn't believe me!_

"Mine had a 2 meter long scorpion's tale and a huge blade that cut through concrete." He said. _Oh yeah great Ron. Sarcasm won't help!_

She sighed and he touched her shoulder. She looked up in confusion and he continued:

"I'm serious! And some huge cannon on its shoulder that shot a beam through the wall and into town! And strange crab's legs, too!"

Kim quietly whistled. "And... the two cops that helped me in hun- finding that fugitive...they..." Kim stopped. Ron sensed that he would see Kim cry for the first time in his life. She took a deep breath and he said before she could speak: "It's okay Kim you don't have to-"

"I want it out. They hung at the ceiling without organs and only skeletons and everywhere blood and everywhere...blood."

Silence came for over a minute. Kim didn't cry what surprised Ron. Instead she only lay her head on his shoulder and said:

"Let's never fight again okay?" Ron nodded and lay and arm around her. Then he quickly withdrew it but Kim held it there and leant a bit closer to Ron. _He'll understand it isn't meant... that way._ _I mean we switched brains once! And he's so smooth. _She sighed happily.

---

"Hey where's Drakken?" Shego shouted from the drivers seat. The three GI's didn't respond because they were engulfed in some sort of cardplay that required three players. Ron and Kim where sitting closely and the two GJ agents sat there and looked around quietly. The man with the sniperrifle and Dr. Director sat in the last row and held chitchat. She giggled at something he said. _Where is the idiot?_

"Where is Drakken?" She repeated while looking back to the front.

"The blue man right?" The cook shouted from what seemed to be a bench she hadn't seen into. "Not here." Director said. _NOT HERE?_

Shego hit the brakes hard enough to make everyone crash into the frontseats and one of the old soldiers was about to complain when she shouted: "Everyone out I'm driving back to get Drakken!"

"What? We are to walk?" The other gang-boy with the rifle shouted.

"Right and if you don't hop off now I'll-"

"Shego that wasn't among the deal!" 'Commander' Ron said angrily.

"Oh sorry for interrupting your cuddling!" Shego snapped back and smiled as Ron quickly took seat with a red face. _Yeah yeah teenboy._

Everyone except Shego jumped off and Kim pulled out her Kimmunicator. The last thing Shego heard before she sped away was:

"What do you mean Gunfire-"

"I swear I'm gonna KILL that idiot! This is the last time I let him go with that!" _That moron why the hell did he stay? He should know I drive as soon as I'm in the car!_ Shego was truly pissed. When earlier would have been just "one of her moments" this was the worst one.

_Or maybe he stayed because I shouted at him so much... Maybe- _She flicked the radio on to get her thoughts away.

"This is Ann Rider LIVE from the Middleton Hospital where a huge Gunfight takes place! Terrorism? Stay tuned and you will know!"

_Huge gunfight? Oh no Drakken is there- _"Police is on the scene! Obviously this is a major attack of an unknown force! Multiple sounds of firearms are comming from the upper floors. Officer what do you say?" Suddenly the voice changed: "Ermmm we-" Old voice again:

"There you have it! Police is clueless and ceartainly outnumbered! But where are special forces? Occupied with another part of this series of heavy attacks on Middletons innocent residents? Stay tuned!" Shego switched the radio off.

_I hope Drakken is safe. He wouldn't be there if I hadn't shouted at him!_ _Stupid me! Why do I always shout at him anyway? He only tried to be nice this time... he only talks nonsense every other time. And why would he bother about if I get embarrassed or not? I'm always at the bad end because of his not working stuff. Although... I always shout at him when something doesn't work. _

An unsettling feeling spread out in her stomach. She drove over a crossing without watching on the traffic. _Uhh bad I almost crashed. Should keep my thoughts from Drakken away. I wonder if he's injured? Or maybe even...de- NO no the doc's fine. I hope... Oh why didn't I look around to count? This isn't the first time I forget him somewhere. And that time at smartymart was the harmless one._

_--- _

"Shego I told you to HALT them both and not to concentrate on HER!" Drakken shouted at Shego. She quickly snapped back:

"Your stupid thing wouldn't have worked anyway!"

"WHAT? I made SEVEN testruns and it worked everytime!" He shouted back as they slowly moved through the cold snow. Both shivered and they only had one blanket. The one Drakken had grabbed before the selfdestruction blew up the lair. Of course, Shego had token it from him. But it was still freakishly cold.

"Why the heck do you always have to buy lairs somewhere distant like in HIMALAYA?" She screamed at him.

"Because... regular police can't go to that far places! You know we lose to their guns!" He said in a defending tone.

"YOU maybe slow boy! Not ME!" She kept yelling at him all the time.

"But Shego! What if you get...shot?" He said with concern in his voice. Before she could snap back at him another heavy wind punched pure hatefilled cold into them. Both shuddered much. It was still way to go to their hidden hangar.

"And why the hell do we have to WALK one MILE to our hangar?"

"Ummm... So that they don't find our car and...cut off our retreat!" He remarked carefully. She just rolled her eyes. They marched on for a few minutes when she noticed that Drakken wasn't at her height anymore. She turned around and couldn't see him through the snowstorm. Shego narrowed her eyes. Still no Doctor. She was about to panic when a thin shape trotted towards her and suddenly fell. She ran to it and saw Drakken only more a few meters away as he weakly tried to get up again.

"Maybe I should let him have the blanket for the rest..." She thought loudly.

"C-Can I hav- blanket? Just for a m-mminute?" He stammered through gritted teeth.

"No." He looked devastated at that.

"Maybe we can share I-It? Would be good 'cause of bodywarmth a-"

"No. Now move, YOU put the hangar there not me!"

They quietly marched further while the cold ate into their bodies. Shego had lit up her hands a bit and warmed herself by that. And by the blanket. While Drakken had none of both. Finally they reached the hangar and Shego got into the car. She shivered heavily and closed the roof by pressing a button. Without moving around or looking she sped on. She had noticed that he was off when the henchmen contacted her over Radio:

"Doctor? Did it work?"

"This is Shego, NO!"

"Shouldn't the Doctor operate the radio while you drive?"

"No the doctor isn't...isn't...oh no-"

Six hours later she found the unconscious Drakken lying inside the hangar underneath an overthrown hovercar. The deathray pistol, a few pieces of working bench lumber and some seatfurniture lay before him shining a weakly red fire among many burned corn-beef doses that he hadn't been able to open. Not even with hits from his deathray. A distress beacon weakly glimmed its red light among the badly done fire that had burnt down. Drakken had, more by luck, somehow survived that day. But that took its price: He almost lost his hands and feet due to frost, had lost about fourteen kilogramms of weight and 3 of muscle because his body had have had nothing to burn. Also he had been in coma for over one month and had still been very sick after that for two weeks. And everytime one of the henchmen saw Shego hatefilled looks greeted her. Sometimes even "Murderer!" shoutings came. During these one and a half months Shego had been nothing but a ghost with a constantly lowered head and sad face. She knew it had been her fault. And, for maybe once in her life, Shego had not been sarcastic and mean to everyone she met.

To her luck Drakken pretended to don't remember anything except that he had been very sick for two weeks.

And Shego had never appologized for that, neither had she thanked him for his forgiveness.

---

_Maybe I should be a bit nice to him. And a "Sorry" won't be that difficult to say...I just hope he's still allright. I couldn't stand losing him. I still don't know where to go to... Wait! I am THAT depending on him? Maybe I should show him a bit more that I need him too. And I can still not believe he didn't take advantage of me during that mindcontrol thing. AND while that moodulator was on me. AND when I was in hospital...and...all the other times I needed him. I never thanked him for that...instead I just shouted at him all the time. I still don't get it why I'm not fired. Sure he doesn't have good henchmen and lairs but...  
_

The car arrived at the hospital's parkinglot, which lay behind the building. Sirens filled the air with terrible howling. Loud noises came through the floors every now and then. It didn't sound as terrible as Shego had imagined. Sometimes a krrrrrrr and from time to time something that resembled a dry whiplash.

"Well Doc, here goes nothing." She went in and was amazed from what the hall looked like. Absolutely clean. Before her was a T-crossing. She sneaked towards it as something moved into view among the corridor. It was a black shape. _Isn't that...yes I remember..._

"HEY! You saw Doctor D?" She shouted and it turned the head, looked at her with red blazes, turned its body and raised a hefty weapon. _Oh shit! _Shego jumped to the side as loud noises came and grey lances sped past where her body had been earlier. She rolled and went into fighting stance.

_"But Shego! What if you get...shot?" _It ringed in her head. _If that guy still hates me fine, but shooting is out of the line. _

She looked around the corner to see that it was gone. She frowned. Then something happened behind her. She turned to see black dusk coming up from the ground. It rose to a pillar of a man's height and she stepped back. Then the black shape seemed to form out of the dusk. Her eyes widened and she stepped around the corner. _What IS that thing? Why is it so fast? And how does it that dusktrick? _Shego realised that it might be better ro run this time. _If that thing has the same armour and better guns... _

_"Oh yeah If this would be a real battle I wou-" "Be dead." Whatever that thing is it's stronger and faster than that guy._

She ran towards the floor and heard small clucking noises. Instinctivly Shego threw herself to the ground. It proved to be the right thing since a loud krrrrrrr came and lances flew over her head. She felt them whoosh by with ugly whistling noises and a mean airstream marked their flightpaths. Something she had once seen in a movie came to her mind. She obeyed the memory and rolled to the left. Again the sound and ugly lances came and hit marble and plaster, smashed holes into the ground, threw up scatters that platsched into the walls with unnervingly tenacious sounds and left only a devastated line of a dozen fist-thick holes. She rolled further when lumber scattered behind her and rounds crushed through the wood- and plasticmade movable closet behind her. Something hot ran through right shoulder and lower leg making her impact on the ground immediatly. A painfull scream came as she felt the searing fire in her body. Noises came closer:

"Survivors!"

But the noises were further away than the ones her nemesis made. Shego tried to move on the ground but it didn't work. Every time any of her muscles tensed it felt more painfull then anything Kim had ever done to her. With an uplit left hand she lay there, the right was numb and hang from the shoulder like a piece of lumber. Any thought of escape was passed away by the numbing fire in her leg. But not only that numbed her out.

It came around a corner and just stared into her. Something cold gripped inside her, fighting the pain inside the body. And fighting her. Shego tried to concentrate as something made her cry: A picture of Drakken lying in snow, unmoving and more blue than unusual. A small tear started to run down her cheek as she screamed for Drakken to come and save her. It seemed to feast, to feed on her outbreak of emotions.

"I won't let you see me like this!" Shego spat at it as another picture of her, as a theirteen year old girl crying on a bench, appeared in her. Again she screamed for her blue doctor while she shot a green bolt into its red flaring eyes. One of the red orbs vanished and showed blank darkness behind where it had been earlier. Any emotion inside her, any memory, everything she had controlled and held away from everyone, came to strange life. Inside her. It felt like a small and almost dead flower blossomed in hyperspeed. Somewhere she had tried to lock it all away, far away from everyone. Even from Drakken, who she learned to trust over the years. Again she called his name this time more desperate. Whatever it was, and however it fought, it was close to victory. A dry sound, somewhere in her far far away mind, rang.

The shape came closer to her with a constantly raised weapon. Shego felt the pressure inside her getting higher the closer it came. Another bolt flew, which costed her another big chunk of concentration and willpower, and molt the front of its long weapon. It didn't care. Instead it kept staring at her, radiating no emotion but a sense of hunger for what she had while it didn't. Not even sounds did it make as it stood there and seemed to suck everything through the air between them. First it seemed to slow the more she resisted, but after a moment it continued, getting faster every time she fought back. It was some sort of mind-battle. Again she screamed his name, hoping he would come in time.

"Mpd freeze!" Came among the noise of readied weapons as multiple steps suddenly stopped. It's head turned away and Shego sensed displeasure from the interrupt. It raised one dark and foggy arm towards the noises, and lowered it after a few moments. She used just that short break to throw another bolt at it. Also she got back a little of what seemed to be energy from it. More steps came, from left and right. It turned towards her, half of its "face" molten away, and was about to look at her again. But it was kept from that by a dry whiplash which echoed loudly through the hall. Whatever it was, it made the thing's head move a bit among the strike and lose one light. She quickly got an idea and threw a green bolt into its other red flash. It vanished, just as the other flash had and the thing kept standing idly.

After calling his name again she fell on her back and breathed hard. Red and black rings flashed infront of her eyes. But Shego had won.

---

"Shego!" Drakken shouted as he heard a voice call his name. Henry aimed at one of the cops after ejecting the old shell but was not fast enough. Max shot his brutal saw into the incoming five cops, tearing limbs off, seperating bodies, splitting skulls and painting the walls in crimson and no longer internal organs. It's loud rrrrr flew across the room just as deadly lead and empty cartridges, who bounced off the wall beside him and flew on his jacket's back, filled the air. "Go for her!" He shouted. Drakken did as ordered. Every cop had been utterly destroyed by the apocalyptic firestorm, but it was still there. Henry reaimed as it turned towards them with one reenewed orb. He shot and it vanished again. Drakken kept running and Max jumped up from the ground, heaving the heavy machinegun and its ammo with him. Both ran across the floor as Henry shot again. It seemed that its head reshaped to a black helmeted head and then got its eyes back one after another. But his shot interrupted that regenation of darknessfilled fog. The rifle was empty and he withdrew a new five round clip from his backpack while running to the heard, but not yet seen wounded Shego. He ran faster and approached just as Drakken screamed:

"SHEGO! NO-" The rest was overtoned by loud angerfilled screams that quickly became suppressed by another loud rrrrr. The woman before him looked very injured and already small piles of blood formed on the ground underneath the injured parts of her. Steps came from behind and he knew it would be three girls. He knelt down while Drakken did the same and took out a bandage from a firstaid box he had attached to his white patients clothing. Then he realised they had no time and was about to turn around when another sawsound came. A bit calmer he began to put a bandage around her bleeding shoulder and Drakken held her up so he could move over the shoulder too.

"Drakken?" She weakly said as her head rested in his hands.

"I'm here Shego don't worry you'll be fine! Just hang through! Please!" He moved her closer to himself and she spoke:

"I'm sorry Drew... I'm so sorry..." Drakken's eyes widened and tears began to flow as he pressed her closer.

"You don't have to be it's my fault! Just hang out like you always do, just this one more time!"

"I'll try...but when I left you in the Himalaya..." Shakily her left hand raised and he took it. Henry started to make a bandage around her bleeding right leg an arm grabbed for his rifle and took it.

"That's not important Shego you're important!"

A weak smile came over her face. "Thank you for everything Drew..." A loud whiplash erupted, Henry gripped her legs without putting pressure on the wounded one and Bonnie mumbled something too quiet to hear. Drakken slowly picked her arms in the rautik grip and they pulled her up. Another loud enraged scream came among the floor, sounding more like a battlecry but suddenly stopped as Henry saw Max slashing at the shapes head to keep it from "healing" while resting the rifle on a movable bed to aim halfly well. Bonnie stood behind him and tried to get the machinegun loaded together with Tara, who had a fiftyround box in her hand. Connie took another bed and shoved it over.

"Shego don't worry we'll get you somewhere safe!" Drakken promised and he knew it would be difficult, but not impossible. They moved to the floor they had come from because the way they had wanted to take was blocked. Another shot came, this time a loud and nasty Tuwumm from a ninemillimeter. Henry knew which one without looking. Shortly after that a whiplash came as Bonnie shot the carbine into another oncoming enraged. This time he turned around and saw what came towards them: Two doctors, one female the other male, two nurses and the janitor. The janitor was the only one not clad in white because he wore a grey workingsuit. Miss Doctor was the first one to be hit, straight into the chest by sevenninetwo from Bonnie's rifle. The effect was not spectacular but usefull, Bonnie's victim simply fell face first without making any noise.

One of the nurses, exactly the one who had took care of Henry, got a legshot by a niner, then another shot missed her chest and hit the janitor to the left behind her and he fell while screaming loudly. Bonnie didn't seem to know how to throw out the old cartridge and shouted at Max for help. He noticed it but was too needed by an attention demanding regenerative head and three remaining enraged. Their eyes glimmed weakly as the other nurse tried to jump but was struck into a shoulder which made him fall. Tara readied herself for bloody melee by taking the empty machinegun by its shoulderpiece and getting into a stance that resembled a scottish highlander with his claymore.

Connie helped her sister by pulling the lever to throw out the old cartridge. Bonnie shot but narrowly missed the six meters away running male doctor. She found out how to pull the lever himself while Connie started to slash at the black shapes head with a lamp, which released Max from his bonding. He aimed better and quicker by taking his knifeholding hand for support. It showed to be usefull since the male doctor received a headshot after jumping up. He was dead before he hit the deck. The other nurse came at him and he made it to deflect her iron pipe's blow by turning his pistol and moving it among the swing while stepping sideways. Bonnie meanwhile stood up and ran to the injured nurse, who had limped and was slower. She raised her hand in a manner she had seen on tv but didn't hit because she got swing to early. That gave the nurse time to expect the blow and she just took the rifle into her hands and smashed it into Bonnie's stomach.

Tara screamed like a viking and slammed the rifle's barrel sideways at the nurses head. It made the angry woman scream and she tried to hit the blonde angel but a niner's shot kept her from that because it hit her arm while taking swing, destroyed her balance and made her fall facefirst, not dead. Tara's new downward swing made up for that. Another made the womans jaw brake as she looked up to Tara.

Max had to get his pistol up to fire, which had costed him moments. The still alive nurse aimed her pipe at his head and he narrowly slowed the downward swing with his blade and made it to make it on impact his shoulder instead of a nerveknot at his forehead. He suppressed a scream as he let himself fall to ground, she saw an opportunity to get him but he rolled away and stood up while she heaved the heavy piece of steel back to an attack stance. Henry knew it hurt much, because Max had thrown off his armour a few minutes ago. Tara ran towards him but would be there too late. His enemy was in a slow position and he let her attack a sideway strike which he evaded from by simply jumping backwards. Then he slashed his knife sideways which made her stumble and inable to defend for a few precious moments. His knife expertly went into the woman's forehead. More battlecrys were heard from the floor's corner and he ran to Bonnie who clutched her stomach while lieing stll on the ground. "Run for the ambulance cars and drive away! We buy you time and run ourselves! Where is the MCL?"

Henry shouted back while Drakken opened a door with one hand: "Warehouse district! South...west I think! Ask Bonnie she knows around! Get to the mall it has a gunstore! Carry as much as you can and get to mcl!" Max nodded and knelt down beside Bonnie, who had opened her armsling earlier to fire the rifle. They went through the door and Henry had a bad feeling about that. He was going to let his two daughters alone. But a heavily wounded person needed attention. And a new car wouldn't be bad too. They ran through a hall and another door. Suddenly fresh air greeted them and he heard Shego mumble something about that she'd be sorry and other things. And he saw something that could be more usefull than an ambulance: He saw the hovercar and only about onehundred meters away an ambulance.

"Drakken I'll crack up the ambulance after we brought her to the hovercar. Then I'll get all medicine I can carry and we drive off then!"

Drakken moved and asked: "Why the hovercar first?"

"In case there's no keys!" Drakken nodded. Henry felt that the blue doctor was deeply worried about that woman. And that he was exhausted. After a minute they arrived and put Shego up. "Give me your pistol!" Drakken obeyed, Henry threw his firstaid kit up, took the weapon and ran towards the ambulance. At hirst he looked at the frontdoor, it was locked. Just as he had expected. Henry started to freeze since he wore nothing but a patients' clothing and he wasn't running anymore. The backdoor was locked too but he made it to shoot up the lock. Hence the pistol. He couldn't see much without a flashlight so it all was a bit difficult to find. To the left was a bigger firstaid kit, certainly with more fresh bandages and painkillers. He made a mental note to take that together with a few small bottles. Then something interesting caught his eye. It was a lock that hung at a small box. He went closer and read:

"Medicine." And shot it open. His eyes had slowly readjusted to the darkness so he read a few signs. There was morphine and other strong painkillers.

"Great!" He muttered and stuffed as much as possible into the bag. Also he took another thing with him. It was a small bag with a breathing mask and two small wires for heartbeat rating. "Must be one of those squeeze- breathing helperthingys." After that he looked at the pistol.

It was a glock 17. Henry looked at the two bags and the Glock. He had three things but only two hands. He decid to carry the usefull stuff.

---

Drakken was near a mental breakdown. The shooting and that these two women died was hard but not the problem. That Shego was near the edge of life and death was a BIG problem. He put his hands to both her wrists and his ear close to her mouth. Small pressures, together with barely audible snoringlike sounds. He smiled.

_I know Shego snores. She'd kill me if I told her. Strange... I don't know much about her but that is one thing I know. And she uses blankets and pillows from smartymart. And she loves Lassie. I don't know what is so great about a stupid dog but she loves it. I hope she pulls this through. I never had an assistant like her. The rest were incompetent morons. Said I'd be easy to defeat! ME!_

Drakken stayed like that for a few minutes. Then something was missing. He frowned. _Hmmmm what is it? Heartbeating? There. Shego? There, too. Slow beautifull snores? Missing. Black beautifull hai- _Suddenly he realised what that meant. He refelt the heartbeat at her wrists and couldn't believe it. He looked at her with disbelief. _Her lips are so beatifull... should I? I have to...but still that... huuuu _Drakken couldn't decide: Touch her lips or don't. He knew he had to do it. But it still hung above his head like the sword of damocles. He rarely dreamt about her, and there had been the moodulator thing. But that was different to him. Slowly his head moved closer and he closed his eyes to recall what he had learned. _Seal the lips and blow air in. And hold the nose closed. _With reopened eyes he looked at Shego. Her lips weren't closed at all, a small opening made them even more delicate to him. He pulled in fresh air and pressed his lips upon hers. It felt good. He was almost about to close his eyes when he realised one thing: _This is not for fun it's for air! _So he seperated his lips from her and took another breath. Then he did the whole thing again. And again it felt very good. He watched as her lips seperated a bit more and put his head to her chest. Also he checked at her wrists. _Still heartbeat! And... _(he waited a bit) _She's breathing! YES! _

At that moment Henry came running to him, two bags in hands. He threw them up and jumped on.

"How is she?"

"Ummm she had stopped breathing but now she's okay again..." He answered slowly. Henry nodded and passed him the bags. Drakken looked at them and found something good.

"Ahh!" He exclaimed.

Henry, who already sat on the driver's seat, asked: "What?"

"Heartbeat and breathing monitors!" Henry frowned at that.

"Close to ECG." Drakken said while already taking the spots out of the bag.

"Electrocardiogram right?"

"Right." Drakken was in a difficult position. He had to put those small circles on her body but that meant he had to take a part of her jumpsuit off. As much as the idea somehow interested him he hessitated. He knew that such a thing would violate her privacy. And even her intimacy. And that was something he would never do. But on the other hand it was his task as a doctor.

"We drive to the next clinic or whatever we find." Henry said and started the enginge. The vehicle drove towards southwest. Still Drakken couldn't really decide what to do. Again he put his head down and heard her soft snoring, barely audible, but one could find it if one knew what to look for. Again he smiled, it was music in his ears. And the snores were a slight little bit louder and more intense. But they were still quiet. Then he thought about something. Shego needed new blood since she had lost much of her own.

_What bloodgroup does she have? Ah! A positive. I have...A negative. Fits! Haha! Maybe I should take over the world by eliminating all rhesus minus and positive and let the people obey me to get them back... hehehehe that would work... _

He took one of the bottles Henry had brought among and examined it: After not recognising it he just put off the small tube, looked sharply if therewould be any fluid on it and found that it wasn't. Then he put one needle of it into his own arm's artery and connected the needle of another with a new tube. Then he put his arm high and connected that other tube with his own tube. At the end a small red flow came after the liquid, simple salt-waterstuff, was out of the straw. He smiled as he saw that Shego got his own blood and not that her's was pressed into the tube by her heartbeat. It was, basically, just a bloodpack with her straw at the bottom and his on top.

_A refillable bloodpack! Maybe should I take the president captive, put something like... mindcontroling blood into him and let him go... Muahahahahaha! Great Idea!_

"What's mcl by the way?" He asked Henry who concentrated on not ramming another car. It was bright day after all.

"Main-combat-line. That means that any enemy is supposed to die before it comes over that line."

"Aha."

"Tell me what happened while I was out of it." Henry demanded.

"Ummmm that director woman called someone else and then was a graphic display of two houses and the buffoon called someone named Chief."

"And what did he say?"

"That we all should go the warehouse district. Shego didn't want to but he threatened to say something about her past. And I don't know any clinic or something close." Drakken said and felt a bit embarrassed. Henry nodded.

"Well then: To the mall."


	30. Storm the mall

Will Du overlooked the evacuation. Everything went rather smooth. Again and again the air filled with the loud noises huge Chinook helicopters made when they started and landed. All in all the mall wasn't a bad idea to start at. The people came in huge groups and with many cars, most of them had little to none package among them. He stood ontop of the southern mall entrance and shouted orders through his megaphone from time to time. But even without doing so everything went well. No one ran. No one disobeyed orders given out by his agents and policeofficers. He remembered how difficult it had been to get the policechief on his side.

---

"Mr Wright I need you to help us an effort to evacuate the city."

"My cops are needed at different places."

"No, the urgence of this happening is overwhelming. Besides, not all of your personell are needed to investigate the happenings."

Mr. Wright scoffed. "The investigations are needing my and my cops full attention."

"If so, you will have to redirect your attention to this task."

"No."

"Yes, you have to. I order you to do so."

"You have no authority in this house."

Will pulled out his GJ badge and showed it to Mr. Wright. "I do have. And I want to have any policeforces under my command."

Mr. Wright gave Will a disgusted and hatefilled look. "Fine. But it will take time to get my cops ready."

"How long?"

Wright smiled wickedly. "Long enough."

---

"What a useless prick. And what did he mean with long enough? Strange moron." Will muttered to himself. Only three cops had arrived yet. But luckily the people trusted his agents even though they carried assault rifles. Some were disturbed by the sights but most of them didn't care. Some of the people had even brought weapons with themselves. Of course they had to hand them over to his agents. Some of them made problems at that, but nothing had to be solved with a taser or prod. That was one of the things Will was proud of. Global Justice could solve problems without violence unlike many other forces. A call woke him from his musing: It was someone he knew.

"GJ headoperative."

"Will this is Dr. Director. You have new orders. Any citizen must be scanned for injuries, pale skin, aggressive behaviour and unability to listen to any command. Also look for inability to speak. Such persons are to be sorted out and must be put in quarantine. In cells. Alone. Also you have to barricade any entrance and window on the groundfloor. Keep evacuating as many people as you can. Keep everyone inside the building until transport, that is an essential part! You must fortificate this building to a fortress. Get anyone to the second floor, destroy the stairs and only use elevators. ANY connection to the second floor except through elevators must be destroyed and cut off!"

"Destroy? Why? And wouldn't it be enough to just block the stairs?"

"No Will, they must be destroyed. And for the reason, a huge uprising group of armed citizens is coming to the building. They can not be stopped by words orders or police presence. They are extremely violent and can only be stopped by heavy arms fire."

Will gulped. That sounded bad.

"We expect them to break through any defenses so the only safe way is to cut any stairs, electrical stairs and ventilationshafts. Also maintenance stairs and anything one can climb up must be destroyed. Will, these people do not differ between unarmed civilians, criminals and police officers. They will come and slaughter any person they can find. Trust me they won't be stoppable even with heavy ordonance. The mall must be a fortress, guarded by heavily armed troopers and it is not allowed to have any way to the first floor unless two hotwired lifts. The elevators may only be operatable from upstairs. We must get any person out of town and shelter the rest on the higher floors. Understood?"

"Yes." He weakly said and nodded.

"Will this is important. If there is ANY way to get higher from downstairs, anyone inside the building will die. The first and higher floors must be remote from the ground and rest of the building. Do you have explosives and electronics to do this?"

Will thought. They had two demolitions experts and one engineer. Blowing stairs and cutting cables shouldn't be that difficult.

"Yes."

"Good. And barricade the doors with anything you can find. Use lumber and tools from construction stores. You have my full authorisation to take their whole inventory. Shut any door and window off from the outside. Dozens of humans will throw themselves against the walls, so they will have to resist a lot of pressure. And Will, arm any citizen with firearms experience and add them to your troops. You must get the people out of this town. At any cost. I hope we can buy you enough time. And contact FBI, CIA, ATF. Even the army must send people."

"Yes, understood. Something else?"

"If you see any civilian behaving wildly or even attacking others you must isolate and execute them immediatly. I know this is harsh but it has to be done. Such people have a sickness in themselves and as soon as only ONE gets into the mall unknown you all die. Out."

With that a totally confused Will shouted at the people to get upstairs. And he ordered the helicopters over radio to only more land on the malls roof. After that he gave out all the other orders to his agents and cops.

"I'll do anything to keep these people from beeing...executed." He shuddered visibly at that thought. One thing he would never do. Kill an innocent because it has to be. He would do anything to not become and executioner. But he would soon meet an executioner. Very soon.

---

The bajonett dripped from blood. But there were still two former doctors. The first screamed at him and he yelled back like a maniac. While slashing his knife into the man's left kidney he ducked, rolled and withdrew his blade. The first started to scream inhumanly loud and painfilled while he used the turns swing to side-slash at number two, who tried to evade but failed. A long thin line "decorated" its chest sideways. Then the blade ran into nr.2's left throat as he stashed forward. The blade withdrew again as both of his enemies fell to the ground, still alive but crippled. The execution followed suit.

---

Connie's stomach started to twist as she saw the bloody spectacle before her. Tara had shot 2 of them with a rifle and that boy 1 with a pistol. She watched as he outright slaughtered the two left doctors after shooting the nurse in her knee and dead. The woman had fallen to one knee and had looked at him. Connie had seen the eyes. A faint red glimmer, but also fear. And a begging expression. He shot her without mercy. Everything happened and she refused to accept that just the boy she had mocked and who hadn't fought back, killed someone. On cold blood. Tara meanwhile ran back to Bonnie and helped her up.

The other two fell down, one clutched his stomach and screamed so loud she had to hold her ears. The other bled terribly and his hand twitched back and forth in terrible speed, his eyes were ripped open and stared into nothing with disbelief. Also his body lay sideways and waved back and forth while the red fluid flew out of the throat in regular intervals, coloring his coat crimson and then the floor. He bent down to the screaming one and kicked him in the face what threw the doctor on his back. The doc's eyes got back a bit of their babyblue before the knife went into one of them. He still screamed and the blade got up again, into the empty socket, up, into the other eye. The poor man had moved in futile manners but stopped as the blade rose among its wielder, totally clad in red and with an eye at it's middle. It had stuck when he had pulled it out.

Her food came into her mouth as the boy kicked the other over and rammed his knife into his backhead. She fell upon her knees, one elbow keeping her head up while the other gripped her stomach. She started to vomit. It all came out. The meat, the potatoes, everything. One thought caught her mind:

_Would he do the same to me? _She made it to look up between two vomittings and saw him kneeling before Bonnie the same way. _Would he do the same to her? _Again a huge sound came out of her mouth among a lot of vomit and she had to close her eyes and lower the head.

Suddenly something hieved her up. It was his hands. She looked at him, but too late. She threw up again and he stepped to the side, giving her room. Then he started to pull her forward and she moved among but kept vomitting while walking. As she finally stopped something moved over her arm. She looked at it and drew back. It was his arm wiping away the old vomit from hers. She just stared. Connie looked behind and saw Tara, who helped Bonnie walking. Her sister meanwhile kept clutching the stomach.

They ran down a small flight of stairs and then into a small room, ceartainly a closet or janitors office.

"How are you?" Tara asked both Bonnie and her. _How I am you wanna know? After seeing that he could easily kill us that way too?_

"Not too good." Bonnie brought out while leaning against a wall. Tara padded her shoulders while he just fummeled at his hefty gun. _Hey I need some attention too! No one asks if I'm bad off! _Suddenly a new flight of vomit came from her and she colored a wall green. She felt the looks upon her. Then she slowly turned around and looked in the asking eyes of Tara and Bonnie while he seemed to understand.

"I...saw people get killed okay! That's nasty!" She explained a bit angrily.

"Right...that's wrong." Tara said. _WRONG? This is not just wrong-_

"This is sick!" She screamed at the three: "So sick and wrong! You just shot and stabbed like it would be the most normal thing on earth!"

Bonnie and Tara knew no answer. She gave the only male of the group an angry and questioning look. He answered while heaving his gun-

"I... am sorry you had to see this." -and moved towards the second door.

"Wait! That is so wrong and sick! How can you kill people and just pretend like it wouldn-" He tried to keep her from looking into his eyes but failed. She saw an immense sadness and inability to change happened things hidden inside them.

"It is them or us... and... so..." He waved around with his left arm and fought for words that didn't come. Then he stopped and sighed while his head lowered. After that he stepped out of the door, Tara and Bonnie started to follow him.

"You just follow him without asking? Without any carefullness?" _Are they CRAZY? That guy just killed those people, no matter if they attacked us or not. _She moved among to see the floor they entered. Three people stood ten meters away from them. Two women, one a nurse and one a doctor, and one male doctor. The nurse and male doctor both had a scalpell, she also had a broom in her hands. The other female doctor had nothing as "weapon". The guy she had just screamed at held his huge weapon, right hand on its grip and left on the left one of two straws that went down in a triangle manner from its barrels end. Towards them, ready to kill.

The nurse asked: "Normal?" And gripped her broom harder. The guy (she had forgotten his name) lowered his gun and Bonnie spoke:

"Yeah. But we might be only normal people now."

---

Suddenly the two persons she was with relaxed visibly: Nurse Bower let her broom sink but still eyed them critically. Doctor Johnson looked at them with happyness, let his shoulders drop and spoke with a reliefed voice:

"Finally a gunman! We were seven on the upper floor. Nice to meat you. I-"

"We must find a car and leave." The gunslinger spoke and moved closer. He didn't look at them much. Dr. Possible wanted to know why:

"Can one of you tell me what this is about?" She asked.

The three girls came closer. She knew two of them: The blonde was Tara, one of Kim's cheerleader friends. The other was Bonnie, her biggest rival and a bit nasty in behaviour. Girl #3 looked a bit ill but otherwise fine. Somehow she seemed to be a bit like Bonnie in body language and looks. An aura of tension hung around them. Her experience with people told her that something was pressing on them.

"The only thing I know-" Tara began "- is that angry people attacked us and we... fought back."

"Us too. You know something specific about them?" Doctor Johnson asked. His curiosity could be usefull sometimes.

"They are the enraged, posessed by lost souls." The gunner spoke toneless and quiet while walking past Nurse Bower. She narrowed her eyes as he looked at her analyzingly.

"Posessed? Oh yeah right." The nurse said with disbelief in her voice. He walked past her and completely ignored that statement.

"I don't know how to describe it else..." Bonnie said while stopping infront of Dr. Possible. A confused look accompanied that.

_Ahh she tries to remember who I am. Maybe I should give her a hint._

"Dr. Possible, Kim's mom." Bonnie shook Dr. Possible's outstretched hand. In the same moment the gunner suddenly stopped for a second. And went on at a slightly faster pace.

"And you are?" She asked while looking at the other two girls. _If I can establish a nice first impression they'll ceartainly tell me what this all means._

"Tara. Nice to meat you all." The blonde beauty spoke and shook nurse Bower's hand. The two blondes looked at each other with happyness.

"I'm Bonnie and this is my sister Connie. Nice... to meet you Mrs. Possible." Connie waved and looked at Doctor Johnson who seemed to mumble something. _I bet she expects me to attack her or something._

"Could we get one of these 'enraged' captive?" Doctor Johnson asked.

"Don't think so. And I suggest we all stay together." Connie said to him. "That means you there too!" She shouted over the floor towards the young man who didn't turn around. "I mean you could be more communicati-" He suddenly raised his left hand and threw a hospitalbed over.

"Are there other stairs behind us?" He asked while slowly throwing over a huge closet.

"No only the mainstairs furter into the direction you came from."

"What are you doing this is expensive hospital property!" Bower shouted and sounded very angry. Bonnie and Tara moved closer and stood between him and the rest as he knelt down and rested the weapon pon the closet.

"Listen if you heard something you can te-" But he just shouted: "Tara run!" Bower turned around to see at Tara who quickly obeyed and gripped Bonnie and her sister among the way. Dr Possible turned around and saw something unsettling. It was a black blur, that seemed to flow through the door and among it's wall, then stopped. "Wha-" It sped towards them with insane speed and red blobs of angerfilled light moved at various places. She started to run too as the black blur seemed to lose in consitance but still came closer. Bower moved towards it and shouted: "Bring it o-" But something stretched out of the blur and hit her head. She fell to the ground without making any noise. It came towards Doctor Johnson and stopped before him. Then it seemed to become something new as the red orbs ran among its "surface" and united to a strange pattern.

No shot came.

It became thicker by the moment, time seemed to slow inside it as a new shape took place. Something very thin, foggy and black stroke through Johnsons chest.

"Shoot you idiot!" Connie screamed at him but he only aimed. Doctor Possible saw at it while looking behind.

Whatever was inside Johnson, it brutally spread out in mass and looked like a gigantc fishing bait with many mean hooks. The black mass seemed to crakle in delight as he started to scream.

Still no shooting.

It's red eyes danced around in high speed until they slowly moved together center. Suddenly the gunner fired in short bursts, the rounds flew into it with ugly whistling. It moved Johnson, who was empaled, up with its spear. He sreamed loudly and even more as one of the rounds flew closely past his hip and cut the skin. It made no noise. Again a burst came, this time it made a reaction happen. One of the red orbs vanished, it shreeked loudly and threw Johnson into a wall where he was still empaled by the huge black spear. It seemed to dispatch the spear and moved towards the group with insane speed. Doctor Possible at least believed it to be extremely fast because it was an unexact blur to her eyes. But however she could see sharp claws, fangs and strange insectoid legs flurry around. Another burst came and crippled one more eye, it screamed loud and seemed to slow down a little bit. Then it was behind her, she could feel the cold fog change as she threw herself to the ground. Bullets flew over her head and entered red with sickening punches. It screamed very loud and threw two thin black things over its red spots while one other twitched in spastical manners. But to no avail, another burst cut through them and into another spot and it fell to the ground, crippled and with five of 6 "legs" twitching in strange patterns. Two more eyes remained.

A new burst destroyed them both and the thing "died". Utter silence even from the injured Johnson came for seconds. Then Connie shouted:

"You... used as bait! As human shields! You Bastard!" He slowly stood with his weapon in hands.

"Yes. If I hadn't done it -"

"How could you! You mean asshole! You muredered that nurse and the doctor!"

Dr Possible felt something. She couldn't put the finger at it.

"It was the Dark... it reshaped into an... arach to hunt us. I -" He tried to explain but was quickly cut off by an angry Connie:

"What? That doesn't matter you little bastard-" He bit his lower lip and tried to find words, she kept on:

"You MURDERER!

His voice changed to a sad but determined one: "I had two choices: Let all die, or sacrifice a few so that I can kill it."

"You can't just sacrifice people!"

"Two choices Connie: There are only bad and no good ones. I took the less worse."

"This isn't a fucking war!" She screamed. He looked on the ground and his eyes turned glassy. After a few seconds he snapped out of it.

"So my friends died in vain? I risk my life to save yours and this is what I get? Hatred, rejection and beeing put in question all the time?"

Connie was about to shout back but Dr Possible put a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe we should just leave." The gunner froze at that sentence. "I guess there is nothing to help Doctor Johnson with." She knew death and had seen it a few times. This was one of those.

"I have my car outside on the parkinglot. And mister: I would like you to answer a few questions." He just sat down on the closet and rested the face in his hands. As they walked towards another flight of stairs she heard him mumble: "Answers...answers...just stop asking the same questions all over... why can't they all just believe? Enough people died..."

They all reached the door and looked behind. He still sat there, looking like an old man forgotten in time.

"Hurry the cops will be here any minute now!" Tara shouted. That seemed to trigger something since he ran past them and downstairs.

Dr Possible opened the door and peeked around. No cops and no weird people. They all ran towards the car, Tara and the gunner kept looking around during that. Dr Possible quickly took the drivers seat and started the engine. Tara sat beside her, Connie behind the driver and Bonnie in the middle. Tara's rifle was putten upwards between the frontseats. The other weapon was put in a upwards beginning at its holders right foot and ending with the infolded bipod at his head.

"I can bring you home if you want. And while I drive we can talk, okay?" Dr Possible offered.

"Didn't Henry say we should meet at the mall?" Tara asked, looking at Bonnie who apologized: "Sorry been out of it."

"Yeah Dad said that. And I could need new clothes." Connie spoke. The car drove up and rode over a small sidestreet away, unnoticed.

Dr Possible made a chunk of thinkwork: _So two sisters, one even meaner then the other, a nice girl and a strange gunslinging teen. Strange. And that weird black... insect isn't good. Henry seems to be Bonnie's and Connie's father but isn't here. _

She decid to start with the most receptive person: "Tara, what do you know about all this?" She drove around a crossing.

"Ummmm. Not much. Those weird people and... black men who shoot with heavy guns and... I've been in a bus with zombielike people."

_That makes no sense! Maybe Bonnie knows more. Or Connie._

"Connie your oppinion?" Another crossing, this time she had to wait.

"Well Dad came home and said something about the living dead and stuff. And about a place he called negrop- nekla-

"Nekropolis." The still unnamed gunslinger said with a voice that was as apathetic as his looking out of the window.

"Yeah whatever. Then he rode off with some people he called his 'friends' and came back about twenty minutes later. Mom and Lonnie had a... caraccident and weren't at home at that time. I guess they won't be here for a few days. Then this greenclothed woman hit Dad with some green ball and he almost shot her. After that we went to the hospital."

Bonnie continued: "Tara and me went to a footballgame to cheer and met that guy there. He wore some menacing armour like these black people do."

"Wore?" Dr Possible asked, hoping for a response.

Connie spoke angriely: "Yeah. WORE. He threw it off against all reasons."

"Hmmmm. I guess...why don't you tell us the reasons for that?" She asked and tried to look nice.

"Errrr... I don't... want to talk about that. It's...personal." He said quietly while looking out of the window.

_Maybe I should try the direct approach. _"I noticed you stop walking and getting a bit pale at the mention of my daughter. Why?"

"You shivered at a girls name? You're a whimp you know that?" Connie said what gave her a ripthrust by Bonnie, among a mean look.

"I had a rather... inconvenient... meeting with... her." Dr Possible noticed Bonnie looking down at that sentence.

_Maybe he wants to say something but thinks it over? That would explain the brakes. _

"Bonnie do you have something to say to that?" _Let's see _ "Ummmm... (Bonnie looked at him and then at her again) Not now."

Connie seemed to lose her patience: "Could we PLEASE stop to talk about shit and drive? I wanna get to Club Banana and meet Dad!"

Dr Possible sped up a bit more and thought: _Maybe they all have been through something heavy_ _and try to cope with it in different ways? One is angry towards everyone, one is a bit quiet at a certain topic and one is passive and reserved._

"FIne people I'll be honorst: I think you all have been through much and it WILL help if you talk about it. I have a diploma in psychic science after all."

"And medicine." Tara added. "Should I begin?"

"Go ahead if you want to."

"I saw...at a bus there were people who got in and killed everyone. I managed to survive because someone helped me. And later I saw above fourty footballplayers get killed brutally. And then Bonnie gets injured and these black men-"

"Just: Dark, no 'the'." Gunner interrupted.

"-Dark came and... all this is happening and the one who could explain gets injured and leaves." Dr Possible nodded. Connie went on:

"I see someone... die and then this freak comes up and tries to boss us around and keeps telling we're all gonna die and... I mean he just KILLED people cold blood! He's a fucking murderer! I don't get it why we tolerate him around!"

"CONNIE SHUT UP!" Bonnie screamed at her sister. "These people would have killed us all! That was selfdefense. And if you dont shut up with your stupid crying around I'll make you shut up!" Connie looked in shock at her younger sister and turned towards the window.

"Okay. "Dr. P. tried to diffuse the tension. "And how about you mister?"

He sighed. "Max, mercenary, medic and survivor of Nekropolis." _Nekropolis? That came earlier. _

"And what is Nekropolis? And what was your role there?" She asked while driving through a long curve. "Yeah tell us!" Tara chimed in.

Again a lowpitched sigh. "I... fought among eleven other men. The black death came and spread out. We warned the people but no one listened. Hell was unleashed. Dead souls remained in their bodies and attacked the living. In the end we set the city on fire. Hence the name: The burning City. But who fought there, like me, calls it Nekropolis."

"And what IS a nekro-thingy?" Connie asked with a bored voice.

"Nekro, latin for death, -polis, latin for the first founded big city."

"So you mean it's-" Bonnie asked but was quickly interrupted.

"What Middleton will be soon: A city of the dead; playground of lost souls; and a cheap knock-off of the burning city: A Nekropole."

Dr. P. announced: "It's gonna be about twenty minutes to the mall at this speed. You can think, relax-"

"Relaxing sounds good." Tara said and stretched. Bonnie yawned and made herself comfortable in her seat. Connie seemed to think about something. She concentrated on driving, but the traffic blocked her.

"Damn what is it today? Everyone seems to be going to the mall."


	31. Sometimes they come back

I've got a review and it confirmed what I feared all the time: Most readers cancelled the story because of the crappy first chapter. It saddens me that my first attempt on writing begins with a stupid mistake. However, I will keep on writing this story until its done. Because you who read this give me your time. I won't simply stop 'cause it didn't work out the way it was intended to do.

Three undead made it to the containers and shambled through a huge hole in the "wall". The chief lay on his container and gave them wellplaced hits. Only three cops remained after the firingraid of two artilleries. And reinforcements were not in sight. Another two made it into the inner yard and were cut down by his mark23 pistol. If small groups of them could penetrate the defenses yet already that was more then a problem. And they had only two mp5's and two pistols, including his. So they had to let the undead get close until they could open fire.

"Maybe I shouldn't have let Ratting get away. His sniperrifle could help us much." _But for how long? _His mind stated the obvious. Ratting could be more valuable when he got Grunningham to the mayor. And thirty sniperrounds meant thirty dead. And there were plenty more than that.

"I hope they can get the city evacuated. If no one is left around here the undead will stay too. Because WE stay until the end." Again he mumbled to himself. And parsed out two more rounds. To him everything seemed like a medieval siege. And he had to play bait to keep the undead inside Middleton. As long as someone eadable was around they wouldn't walk away. Even if the bait was too high to get. "Haha. No ladders and stairs ey folks?" Another undead found his last grave. All bioartillery remained quiet. They had to regrow ammunition.

---

They heard rumbling in the southsouthwest. The noises were small and dry. Mostly an u-u-u that echoed somewhere far away but was still close enough to hear. Also single noises, not more then a drop of water on stone, came. Goff, Rich and J took the lead, keeping close eyes on things. Behind them were Ron and Kim, after them Derrick and OD followed. She and Ratting were the last. During their drive a few curious people's eyes had followed them, yet they were alone with themselves.

They reached the first old warehouses. Everything happened like a sneaking change in environment. It didn't make "Smack" and warehouses plopped into view. Instead the suburban houses slowly became older and rarer. No one could be seen on the streets, the gardens were empty and shallow housewindows kept staring after them with hungry eyes. No human was encountered at all.

"This is strange." Dr. Director said while shivering a little bit. Albert came closer and put an arm around her.

"Why? You said they should evacuate and they did. Besides it's working time. Suburbs are always that empty then."

"But normally housewomen or -men stay at home. The same with old people. This all seems so... empty." She said while moving her arm around his waist in acceptance of the warmth he offered.

"I'm sorry because of earlier... I was a bit dumb and not really myself." She quietly spoke. He gave her a small peck on the cheek.

"No problem. I'm not hurt or stuff. Besides I liked you 'out of control'." A muchsaying smile played across his face.

"Oh really?" A bit of surprisement was in her voice as she blushed. "I really wasn't how I usually am."

"Oh. (His shoulders dropped) No hot nympholadies whose name I don't know?" A played disappointance came among a sigh.

She smiled warmly. A thing she rarely did. "Not now. Betty's my name." A long kiss followed. It still felt uncommon to her. But nice.

"Nice names for nice women." He exclaimed almost like a political election phrase.

"Anyway we gotta keep up with the rest." Suddenly a hand clapped on her butt and a smiling Albert ran beside her.

"Oh you won't get away with that!" Betty shouted as she started to trace him. A happyness she never knew before made her run faster.

---

Chief withdrew his last clip. They already had to give all the pistolammo to the mp's. And it was very cold. In fact he couldn't feel his feet anymore, and his legs started to get numb. It started to snow from the grey unfriendly sky. And the undead kept coming. They shambled through the heavy thick snow up to their hill. Some fell, some staggered and some others just stood still in the snow. But they all kept coming slowly. Chief was thankfull for one thing:

They kept coming alone or in small groups. It seemed like they wouldn't be hungry but simply exhausted. Mechanicly foot stomped into the snow, sank deeply into it, came up again, dropped into the cold snow and hieved up again. Sometimes they stumbled into a dead body without noticing since the heavy snowfall allready covered the old dead. Chief knew how it felt to stomp into a dead body. The strange warm and still cold feeling when boots entered weak meat, pressed it thin and made it it bent under their weight. And the noises it made.

The sight before him was almost apocalyptic. The long container had a gaping hole in it and bent down into a crater where once street has been. The left building missed it's right groundfloors corner and the thick hole let cold wind flyinto rooms, meat and weapons. Again the wind made it's ugly loud whistle as it stroke among the roof, cut into any hole and rolled over corners and bodies like heavy unfeeling sandpaper. He heavily shuddered just as his three remaining troopers did. Bio-mortars had hit the building many times and killed seven men. Six believed it would be the best to charge the undead head on.

Their screams still echo everytime the wind blows. Five others just ran away, taking weapons and ammunition with them. Only he and three persons held the fort. To their luck the snow and heavy wind that blew down the hill they stood on slowed the undead. And seperated them from each other, greatening the gaps in speed and tenaciousness, what made the most move forward alone. Or in groups that were too small to wake the group-instinct inside them.

The entire hill was covered with corpses. Sometimes in small groups, mostly alone. Most of themlay there like collapsed wanderes, like mountainclimbers who surrendered to the overmanning cold. It didn't look like a slaughterhouse, there weren't gigantc streams of blood, nor meterhigh piles of bodies. The entire long range between two battered houses and the long roads ending had prone bodies covering the distance.

One could clearly see the battle that had waged on and on in the small snowholes and around them. Still the craters remained, with their black grounds clearly differing from the white pampa around them in color. Also they from small dents in the staticwhite. Small puddles of water formed within their grounds, snow that had molten after and during the explosion. It began to snow.

---

Kim looked up. Noises of helicopters filled the air. Somewhere their drumming sounds where. But she couldn't put the finger at where. It seemed like the sounds would come from every place in heaven. She got out her Kimmunicator. Wade's face came.

"Wade where are these helicopters? They might pick us up."

"Sorry but no. They're for evacuating civilians. But I called for backup if you mean that." He took a sip of his soda.

"Who oversees that evacuation?" Ron asked. She smiled as he came closer.

"Will Du. He looks a bit bruised but does his work." Wade stated.

"But I saw him on fire!" Kim said. It sounded way too unbelievable to be true.

"He had a teleporting device with him. Seems like he's done with the evacuation in... about thirty minutes."

Ron asked: "Isn't that a bit too fast? I mean Middleton has a very huge population and stuff." Rufus came out of his pocket, moved around his body, rested on his shoulder and made an agreeing sqeel.

"Remember the general you helped with commodore puddles in area51?"

"Which isn't secret anymore at all!" Ron stated.

"He is happy to return the favor. GJ is on their way to help you when they're done."

Ron, still not satisfied, asked again: "How can you get the people out of town that fast?"

Wade took another sip. "We told them the o-boys would give a free concert at the mall. And the general's got about twenty chinooks."

"Oh." Ron said, sounding a bit disappointed. "Just thought something mysterious would happen for once."

Suddenly a strange loud noise mixed into the stoic hammering of the rotors. Everyone stopped and looked at it. A green bright point, while flashing light into their faces and creating dark long shadows, went up into the heavens. It slowly rose higher with a weird noise: "FFFFFFFFUuuuuuuuuuhuuuuuuuuuhuiiii- tufff" It rose, stayed in the air and plopped away with a numb thud. Suddenly a second one rose, right where the first one had vanished, making the same loud spectacle. Kim saw Ron turning around and looked, a numb thud came and her eyes were a bit flashed from another one rising to heaven. From the place they were marching to. It's red bright ball was followed by red traces of condensing red sky.

"Flareguns!" Ron mumbled to himself as they were enlightened by both sides, front and back. The green and red mixed and made a strange expression on them. Suddenly from somewhere in town another numb plopping thud and lightball rose, yellow and whistling even louder, bathing them in three different lights. Then red came from another spot somewhere in the east of town. The cities small skyline became a 4th july festival. Two more thuds rose, red and green. They all rose to an almost circular highest point only to die down quickly in their descent.

The choppers didn't mind the flares. But Ron did: "Those are flareguns!" He shouted so that everyone could hear it.

"There must be many resistance nests in this city then." Rich said. Dark shadows playfully flew over his face and made huge contrasts of light and darkness.

"Or people in danger who hope for rescue." Ratting mumbled. His smile faded.

Kim quickly got an idea. "Wade track down where these flares came from and give me the coordinates!" Wade typed something and her screen showed multiple dots.

"Thanks Wade!" She smiled.

"No prob Kim. Maybe you should go to these places and save them while your three GI's assist the warehousers? It'll take some time until chopper support arrives." Kim nodded and waved goodbye. The screen went black. She looked at the lightshow again. It seemed like the signals would speak with each other. In a language that didn't need any letters or numbers. Just colors. It was a very beautifull sight as all the lights let Middleton look expensively colored. But as quickly as the magic had started it died down. The last flash vanished and everything went back to the same monotone grey and black.

"Okay me and Ron will go to the... Terrington road. Mr. Ratting and Dr. Director you take the office building in the Arlington. And the two GJ's go with you three, Mr. Richard. Derrick you and OD go to the left flare from..."

"Sixth street." Ron helped her out.

"After that we'll all meet at the place southern of here. Where that 'chief' is."

Everyone nodded and slowly dispersed into various directions. Ratting and Betty smiled at each other before disappearing in a sidestreet, Rich and his four people marched towards south, among the long mainroad. OD and Derrick went to north north east. Ron and her suddenly stood there all alone. He looked around. Kim quickly looked him all over before their eyes met. He smiled at her.

"Where do we go to KP?"

"We've got two spots. Motorway 19 and the mall." She stated.

"And where do we go to first?"

"Umm I thought I'd let you decide."

"KP please don't think you'd have to be extra nice cause of our argument earlier. I mean I'm cool with you beeing the boss."

She looked confused. He went on: "You just know what to do and I... don't. At least not at world saving stuff."

"Oh... okay. Anyway we got to go. Motorway 19 lies between us and the mall so we-"

"-go there first." Ron finished her sentence. He smiled when she nodded. Together they walked past a huge old building and into an iron-fenced yard. Old trucks that hadn't been used for years stood in rows.

"Looks creepy. Almost like a graveyard." Ron said. Rufus nodded. Kim looked at him. It was Ronald just how she knew him. Except for one thing that spoiled the harmony his sight always made her feel. It was the rifle and a small cardbox at his belt.

"Ron why do you have a gun with you?"

"Oh... you know I dropped from the plane and a man named James gave it to me." Ron said and looked at the weapon. To Kim it seemed like he had it among himself like Rufus: It's seen as something so selfunderstanding to be there. Like as if he had it for his entire life. Kim felt uncomfortable at the thought of Ron having a weapon.

"I think you should put it away." She tried to be as most subtile as possible.

"Umm I don't know. It's kinda... helpfull." He said, not fully sounding convinced of it.

"But guns are for war! War only takes everything away you love: poeple, your home-" Kim scoffed a bit.

"But I have to keep things away from you when it's necessary!" He raised a finger at that.

Kim looked down. _He has a point. These things I saw in the park and after that were strong. I still don't like Ron with a gun. He's not the old Ron. Not my Ron. _She shook her head. _My Ron? Weird. _

"Why did you jump off anyway?" Kim asked. _Maybe I should switch the subject. Subtle, of course. _

"Oh... I just wanted to-" Ron looked uncomfortable. She arched a brow.

"Come on Ron tell me." She insisted.

"I wanted to buy you a christmas present." He stated. It was obvious that he felt caught. _Oh great. Now I made him spit out his secret._

"That's sweet Ron. I was just worried. You never just 'disappear' like that." _Maybe Wade's right? Maybe I let him do nothing on his own?_

"Oh okay." They walked past an old truck. It's empty cockpit gaped at them with an empty, hungry and lonesome expression.

"I just thought we could have gone to bueno nacho after that."

Ron held his stomach. "Now that you say it: I'm pretty hungry! What about you buddy?" He asked Rufus. The small thing squeeled. She smiled at the sight. She did that often since the moodulator incident. Just as she often looked at him in a different eyes. Or as people say:

To see someone with new eyes.

And just that had happened. The way she always had seen him had changed. Maybe not by free will but it had. But Kim still refused to believe it. It meant to accept that everyone grows up one day. That things would become difficult and that things, just as people, changed.

Both made their way through a row of trucks as Kim started to feel the cold again. Even though Ron was with her. A shivering moved over her entire body. Ron came closer.

"What is it KP?" He asked with concern.

"Oh it's just cold."

"Really? You didn't bother in (he counted on his fingers) himalaya, northpole, southpole-"

"I had a jacket there, Ron."

"Oh. Sorry." He laughed nervously. She just rolled her eyes. They moved between two halls.

_But something is difficult here too. It's not just cold. It's... cold and dark. Not just the hundreds of lairs, caves and warehouses I've seen. This isn't just shifty and stinky. It's somehow... I don't know..._

Without noticing her pace quickened. Ron fell behind and ran up to her.

"What's the rush KP?"

"Oh... I can't put the finger on it but this place is dangerous." Something made her run. Ron sensed that even before she noticed it and stayed by her side. _Wow are we THAT attached to each other? That's... frightening. _

They ran through a gate that led into a huge corridor between two buildings. Without thinking she ran even faster. Kim looked behind her. _Normally that's the time for Ron to get stuck somewhere with his pants. It's so funny when he stands somewhere just with his boxershorts on. And he's got a nice waist- _

Quickly Kim shook her head. That weren'tthe things she wanted to think about. At least not at that moment. However Ron did fine. That means he kept running at her right side not even two feet away. His goofy walk had not been replaced by the weapon in his hands. One thing less Kim feared to ever happen. But he looked a bit uncommon with the rifle in his hands, waving it's front to his left and the butt loosily putten into his houlder.

Her heart started to race. Much more intense than it ever had. A gripping tension came across her body. Not even Josh had created that feeling, "his" had always had been a bit paralyzing and uncomfortable. But this was a feeling of imminent threat.

"Something tries to find us!" Ron whispered into her ear while she stood still. Before them was a crossing. Two ways. Left and right. She didn't know what to do.

"Kim!" Ron pleaded with his back to her and looking into the corridor they had come from. Rotorsounds came from above. She withdrew hr Kimmunicator. She needed help, advice, orders. For the first time Kim didn't know what to do.

"Choppers! Tell Wade to tell them to pick us up!" Ron said between breaths. It seemed like a good idea.

"Wade get these choppers here!" She ordered him roughly. At first he looked at her a bit surprised and rejecting. After that he must have seen something in Kim's eyes that made him obey the order. He typed to his keyboard and Kim looked up. The sounds were very close but she couldn't see much. Frantically her eyes searched around the air. Nothing came. Suddenly Ron grabbed her free arm and pulled her among his run. Without looking up her legs got in motion and he released her arm. Two dots appeared on the screen.

"Hold that towards the two dots!" Wade commanded. She obeyed and one of the dots got a 'lock' sign on it. Wade furiosly typed new orders and the dot started to disperse. She turned around to look why Ron had grabbed her and saw the corridor. It was virtually swallowed by darkness. The sight vanished from a few dozen feet to a few less any second her eyes picked up. The rotors came closer.

Ron started to pull her again and they ran. A wall came before them. Kim helped Ron jump over it and then jumped herself. An entirely black helicopter descended towards and empty yard. They ran further, but Kim knew the feeling got more intense. It was like a sirens call.

"Come to us! We're all here Kim!" A voice she knew suddenly called her. She stopped, Ron ran further, not noticing her stop. She turned around and saw faces. Blackness was about to spread over the entire building behind them. So black that it seemed to be nothing anymore.

"You won't regret joining us!" The voice promised. She saw who said the words that kept her banned like that: It was Josh.

---

Ron ran. The helicopter landed and two dull thudds erupted from its inside. He looked at the door. Nothing could be seen inside. A feeling came. A very bad and stomach twisting feeling. The feeling he had have had after Lonnie died. And the only one close was Kim.

His eyes widened and he ran back to Kim. As he turned he saw a black foggy mass coming through the corridor and from the roofs towards them. And he saw faces inside that black thing. He couldn't judge if it were hundreds or millions. But he saw one face among them. Lonnie's face. It spoke to him: "Come to me Ron, I still love you!" His mind dropped out, his stomach twisted into painfull knots and everything wanted to just forget everything and enter that fog. Join Lonnie was a more than nice thought. But something more important was there. Maybe even more important than himself:

Kim.

He ran, but it had stopped feeling like he would run himself. It felt like an automatic machine's task. He felt Lonnie drain his emotions and attention away from him. And he saw Josh Mankeys face. A slight anger packed him with an iron fist and blocked out the strange numbness.

"I won't let you have her!" He shouted at the black mass that swallowed the ground, building, trash, barrels, air, sight, hearing: Everything. His arm yanked around Kim's and he pulled with all his might. She didn't react. So he did something he swore to never do: He slapped her.

It seemed to have an immediate effect, Kim touched her cheek and looked at him. The look was the one of a sheep that didn't understand why it suddenly was thrown off the slaughter's table. Without understanding what the slaughter was, of course. He shouted at her:

"Follow me!" And took her hands. She mechanically moved after him and they jumped on board of the chopper. It was so dark that they couldn't see three meters far. Only red pairs of lights and a few metallic reflections were to be seen. Ron threw himself and Kim to the helicopters ground and two thuds came above him. He looked back to make sure Kim was still in his hands and saw that she was. He moved one arm around her tigh and held it hard while his other held a metallic grip.

Again two thuds came and two small lightblue clouds that seemed to block the black thing. But whatever it was it literally ate it's way through them, merely halted for moments to small to count.

The chopper moved with incredible speed. Ron thought that the pilot hat to be insane to fly that way. Whatever the black mass was, as close as Ron was at that moment he could see it's true shape: It was a thousand persons. Only their upper bodies were there, raging out of the huge black mass like hairs from skin. Except that this was more intense then the Yeti's pelt. More greedy hands and widely opened mouths then Ron could ever count stretched towards them. And the eyes were filled with nothing but a grey void that radiated unearthly hunger and lonelieness.

With loud and stoic hammering rotors brought the massive chunk of metal into the sky. Ron had almost lost Kim and his arm felt like in cramps after the huge pulling of g-forces lowered to an acceptable level. He slowly relaxed and the whole exhaustion took its toll on him. Two red dots inside a black shape gripped towards Kim and he raised the shotgun with his free hand. While the other protectively held the seemingly unconscious Kim closer to him than before. The red dots stopped and spoke to the surprised Ron:

"Thou shalt not fear us, for we art not thy death."

He tried to stay awake but didn't make it. Many hours without sleep claimed him as prey and darkness engulfed his vision.


	32. Tara, her skills, and weird dreams

Hello dear Reader(s). This chapter contains pretty much dialog. Have fun! If that's still possible with my story. Criticism is appreciated. Hopefully you like this way of tale-telling. Should I write more "in movements and actions" instead of the discribing style of now?

The traffic stuck hard. No car moved at all. Everyone wanted to see "the O-boys." Hence the streets were filled close. The radio sounded:

"This is Anne Rider live from Middleton Hospital! Police has made their way into the building, I am, as always, right on the spot!"

"Not that bitch again! Can't we hear some music?" Connie asked. Dr. P turned the radio off.

Bonnie was bored to hell. Her sister was no person to talk to or with. She knew it since she had to live with Connie ever since. Tara was asleep so no talking too. And Dr Possible was Kim's mom. That spoke volumes, even to the blind and deaf.

_I wonder where Dad is just now?_

She stretched her arms and legs for maybe the tenth time. It quickly got boring like the rest of whatever was around her.

_Didn't Dad say we should meet at the mall? Those people were way too weird. And why did I shoot one?Am I… a murderer? Oh god I'm a murderer! Jesus NO!_

She frowned and accidently bumped an arm into her sister. Normally that would have resulted in a huge mock-attack by her and Lonnie. But this time Connie didn't even notice. Luckily that accident made her thoughts drift away from ethical problems to sister problems.

_Connie not going at me? That's WAY too weird. She normally uses any small thing to pick on me. What the hell is wrong with her? Oh I guess it's dad being in the hospital. She was in the restroom. When she came back these people were all over the place. Weird stuff. _

Her eyes moved around the "room". Dr P. kept typing her fingers on the wheel. The car didn't move since all streets were blocked by other cars that just stood around. Tara and Connie hadn't changed. One thing bothered her. It was the boy's first aid kit that scratched on her skirt and leg. She turned around to look. He seemed to be in a numb halfsleep, quietly mumbled something and leaned his head against the gun's barrel. She scoffed at that in confusion.

_How on earth does Dad meet SUCH__ people? How do I meet such people? Oh yeah the party…Poor josh. He deserved better. Yeah that's a bit too harsh for dropping me. Although… If I hadn't called him he hadn't gone to that basement!_

Her stomach started to feel very bad and her heart sank. She vanished deeper into the seat.

_Did I murder Josh? NO these people did! But I called him to meet those people! So it's my fault he's dead after all. Oh god I killed two people. _Her head dropped and the face mirrored sadness.

"Bonnie what is it?" Doctor Possible asked.

She suddenly jerked up. "What?"

"You seem sad about something. Maybe you should talk about it." Dr. P had turned around and carried a comforting warm smile.

_Talk about it? Sounds good. Carrying it around won't help. Besides I wanted talk all the time._

"Oh... I had that party. Some weird people appeared and I called my ex boyfriend for help. He got killed. So it's my fault he's dead. Right?"

Connie was, for one of her few times, nice: "No. The people that made you shout for help did." Also she padded Bonnie's shoulder nicely.

"But-"

Dr. P interrupted: "Connie's right. It's not your fault. Who was your boyfriend?"

"Josh Mankey."

Dr. P nodded and looked back at the street. She seemed to be deeply thinking.

"Isn't that the boy Kim had a rush on?" Bonnie's face turned to dislike, Max mumbled something and gripped his gun closer.

"I noticed that." Bonnie gave back in a poisoned voice.

"She told me you and him had a small fight in school."

She crossed her arms and made a pfff sound. "What does SHE know? She's got everything! A perfect body, loving parents and loyal friends. And THEN she gets a crush on the boy who's MY boyfriend! I mean she already took everything from me BEFORE! Cheerleading, friends, fame, even RON hates me because of HER!" Bonnie shouted like a fury.

"And she always keeps pretending I'd be the agressive monster! And everyone believes her. She gets everything as gift I don't get for hard work!"

Tara had woken up and looked at the redhaired woman just as Connie did. Dr. Possible stared at her in confusion before speaking:

"I... I never knew that you and Ron-"

"We were the best friends! Then she came." Bonnie's look changed to utter hatred. "And stole him."

"But-" The doctor tried to interrupt but quickly got cut off.

"I was ready to share. I didn't mind her being together with Ron and me. She wanted to be alone with him. SHE didn't want to share."

Bonnie forgot about freezing, hunger and fatigue. The hatred replaced everything.

Tara switched the radio back on. Everything was better than the fighting. But something suddenly made Bonnie look down. It was a blue jeans jacket folded over her upper and olwer legs. She looked at Connie. Her sister didn't wear that and even if she had kept it for herself. Doctor P was in a doctors coat and Tara, like herself, in the cheerleader's uniform. She looked right and saw Max in an old t-shirt leaning at the gun again.

_Nice! finally my legs don't freeze anymore. _She wanted to say something but hessitated. _He certainly don't wanna to hear it anyway._

---

"The casualty rates are more than high, an outright slaughter has happened here. Staff and patients have been shot or otherwise killed. There have been no reports of survivors yet." _How cynic: The past repeats. Again a lifesaver's place became a trap of death. _

"Maybe we should get to police and explain them what we saw?" Tara asked. _Yeah right and get shot for it._

"I don't think that is a good idea. They might blame us for it." Dr. P answered. _Finally someone gets the hint._

"We're not responsible. Except one guy here." Connie said._  
_

"Police blames the escaped Prisoners Mark Twain and a yet unknown fugitive. Has the Upperton slaughterer planned his revenge? Who else will fall to his bloody hands? How long will his bloody crusade last further? Is there a relation to the school massacre? Is it him or the other escaped prisoner? Who assisted them in escape: Terrorists? Stay tuned!" _Mark... the perfect scapegoat. Once again the media feasts on useless death and violence.  
_

Everyone was bored from the carride and sleepiness came. Bonnie stretched many times, Tara leaned her head against the window and seemed to be asleep again. Connie kept looking out of the window and Dr. P seemed to be thinking much. _At least Bonnie doesn't freeze. I wonder how long it would have token her to just demand the jacket? Didn't know she had so many problems though..._

--- 

Tara sat around and kept thinking. _Wow. Didn't know the entire truth about Kim and Bonnie. I bet Kim's mom didn't know that too. Must be a harsh thing. _That wasn't the only thing that bothered her. _Maybe I should try it again. Let's see-_

"I'll have a talk with Kim about that when I get home." Tara looked closely at Dr. P's eyes. Nothing came. She narrowed the eyes and kept concentrating. Nothing again. Right as Tara wanted to give up a small sound, not audible but feelable, came inside the doctor's head. Like a bloodhound she traced the small hint and closed her material eyes shut. At first there was nothing but blackness. Then, slowly, a huge castle came into view. It seemed wellbuild and strong against any attack. She felt herself stand before that castle. It was very huge and looked like it could withstand a thousand sieges. Sometimes the walls had smaller holes but it was still very stable.

She wandered closer to the castle and saw no one on the walls. She had expected to see archers, pikeniers and knights. But no one was there. A huge and long straight road led towards the castle. It was not made from marble but from simple grass. Huge trees stood in organic rows among the street. Their old wood seemed thick and like it would inhabit more wisdom any human could comprehend. Beautifull, golden and round apples hung at them, luring her closer. She took a few steps and felt a soft warm wind blowing from behind. It gently pushed her forward and made her goldenblond hair flow forward, like as if it wanted to show her the right direction.

Everything was warm. Huge fields of freshly harvested crop stretched further than the horizon. The grass gently moved among the warm and inviting wind. Hundreds of flowers blossomed everywhere. She felt that it was summer. A butterfly crossed the air before her in a playfull manner. She slowly stretched her hand forward and it landed on her thumbs tip, rested there for a second and then flew on.

She wandered forward and saw how idyllic flowers moved among the treelines. Everything made a peacefull expression, even the huge walls looked like they had a rather formal reason for standing. But still they looked very stable and resistable. Tara looked at herself. She stood there in her cheerleading uniform and shoes. But a very faint blue glow emitted from her skin. She looked closer.

The place where the butterfly had landed slowly got its glow back. She decided not think about it and moved towards the castle. Huge nicely blue and green banners hung from the huge gatehouse. It had two very large doors made from thick brown lumber. Her hands moved across the finely decorated material. Suddenly the doors moved, slowly and steadily, open. She stepped into a huge yard.

Everywhere stood small houses and a huge mass of people stood around a man who stood on a platform. She moved closer and heard the man's voice:

"- thou listened dear folken: The princess might be stricken within a case of jealosy. But still the peace will continue on. Thou shalt leave."

Everyone started to move away. She looked at the faces and body language. Everyone seemed to work hard. But happieness and health was on the faces. A man walked towards her and she didn't step aside since she hadn't noticed him coming. To her surprise he just moved through her and the blue glow became a bit thicker. She scoffed. It seemed like people couldn't see or touch her.

_Maybe I can touch them? The butterfly could._

Tara walked across a set of stairs that led up the walls. Something pulled her up the stairs. As she stood on top a wonderfull sight appeared before her. A man stood beside her who held a pike in a hand. He looked worried and towards the horizon. She looked at the man. He didn't look like the rest but almost like a law enforcer of medieval. He turned around to look at someone and she did so too. A man stood at one of the doors to a tower and rested, in exhausted manner and with heavy breathing, against the wall. He spoke:

"Mylord, news from the highest city!"

The other man with the pike turned a bit more. Tara saw that his right lower arm was missing. A small fire at the horizon caught her eyes.

"Tara are you alright?" Dr Possible asked. Suddenly the car was back. _Whow that was... weird stuff!_

"Oh yes I am, thanks." She answered and looked out of the front window.

"The victims have died from terrible deaths.-" The radio suddenly spat out. Tara was taken aback but didn't show it.

"Each and everyone of them was brutally murdered. Whoever did this must have access to strong and expansive weaponry. Who could have done this?"

_I wonder how long I was "Off". That's really weird. Maybe I should... try Connie? _Tara looked into the front mirror into Connie's eyes. She felt resistance and narrowed her eyes. Everything went dark and she stood somewhere. It was cold and she heard waves.

Waves of water slowly crawled around her legs. But still everything was too cold and dark. It felt familiar. She looked around but only blackness was to see.

_Strange. Haven't I had something like this allready? The water and darkness_ _aren't new. _

Two orbs of red came towards her from far away. She looked at them and suddenly the entire darkness infront of her got filledwith red orbs. An unsettling feeling came across her.

Something shook her. She turned around to see a hand on her shoulder. The familiar cold and dry air hovered around her. And again the car was there.

"Hey why did you do that? She was finally asleep!" Bonnie said in a shocked tone. Max sat back and looked out of the window.

"Right you can't just wake her up! She needs rest like we all do!" Connie joined in with her sister. A rare thing. Tara looked at his eyes. He seemed helpless and with no plan what to do.

_Only enter one mind at a time. Between minds is darkness, which is their realm. They almost got you this time. Next time they'll claim you forever. _

Tara was taken aback_. Did I think that? Or did he think that? He knew I could hear it! _He looked into her eyes and she understood.

"I had a nightmare." She said. Surprised looks from the two Rockwallers were the response.

"Really?" Doktor Possible asked: "What was it about?"

"Drowning." Max said. Connie was about to say something when Tara visibly nodded. Confused looks came at Tara.

"Yes, I almost drowned when I was six. Still have nightmares sometimes." She said.

"Isn't that like... mindreading? Not even I knew that!" Bonnie asked. Tara just looked out of the front window and pretended to be deep in thoughts. Bonnie got the hint and didn't ask any further questions.

_Of course you never knew. I lied. Better than being caught. _She relaxed a bit. _I don't think they'd believe my nightmare earlier and the mindreading thing. Can I REALLY read what other people think? _This time she looked at the ceiling. _I think...yes. I could in the taxi and here. So why not everywhere? And that 'dream' felt way too real for just a stupid nightmare. I still remember everything._

All came back, the cold, darkness, the voices. And the corpses. She shivered heavily at that thought. Dr P held her the doctors coat. _Oh she must be thinking I'd feel cold. Well it's right. Even when she gets it from the wrong hint. _She took the coat and put it around herself. The cold, mostly around the legs, was quickly exchanged by a weak warmth. It was far from comfortable but an improvement.

She looked out of the window. Everything looked unfamiliar because of the snow that lay everywhere. And since the streets were empty. Mrs. p withdrew a cellphone from a pocket and dialed a number. Finally the blocking had stopped and the cars got into movement again.

"I'm coming home earlier this time. - Yes I'll cook something. - Yes don't worry I'm fine. - What do you mean all over the news? - Oh yes I heard of... you mean NO survivors?"

Bonnie, her sister and Tara got a worried face. _Maybe Bonnie's Dad didn't make it out? I hope he did. And that woman looked badly injured. _She looked at the rifle that lay close to her. _So that's my gun now? _She took it into the hands and looked closer at it.

"Could you get Jim and Tim home? - They already are? - Yes I'm coming home - Yes call Kim. bye honey." Mrs. P switched the phone off. Tara meanwhile kept musing about "her" weapon. _So everytime I shoot that lever must be pulled. I wonder how many bullets it has? Hey I don't have the bullets for it!  
_

"Don't tell me you're one of those gun-freaks too?" Bonnie asked.

"No. These people could come back. You shot with it too and ain't a gun-freak right?"

"I mean is that necessary? Guns are loud and stuff." Connie joined her sisters oppinion.

"Same here." Mrs. P said.

"I don't think you'd say that if one of US had died. These people were crazed. Not harmlessly crazed. Bonnie didn't one hit you hard?"

Bonnie seemed to think over that. Connie and the doctor didn't seem fully convinced. So Tara went on:

"Let's just think that person had rammed Bonnie a scalpell into the stomach and she had bled away. And that black... thing would have eaten Connie. What then? You saw that greenclad woman and how she looked like." Dr. P seemed to understand.

Max nodded. He seemed to share her oppinion. Connie spoke and pointed at her sister:

"Hey I know that woman! She was off with Dad and the other people when you came back."

Tara thought: _No haven't seen that one. Maybe because I had been bathing after Bonnie?_

"And this guy was to watch over you. Didn't you read the note? Huh?" Connie went on. Bonnie and Tara looked confused.

"They had driven away."

Dr Possible cursed quietly. The car had to stand in a huge

"And why didn't you get them BEFORE the stadium thing?" Connie sounded angry.

He gripped his weapon closer and looked helpless. "I... had my reasons!"

"Oh yeah? Like what? You tried to shoot yourself again?" Tara and Bonnie looked even more comfused.

His face showed fear. "Just... just shut up! All just shut up!"

"Or what tough guy? Are you gonna get your armor back and hide behind it?"

"What did you mean shoot yourself?" Bonnie asked.

"The moron tried to shoot himself. But he didn't make EVEN THAT." Connie's voice was filled with displeasure.

"You..." Mrs. P began. His eyes got glassy after looking into a mirror. He got out of the car, took the machinegun with him and ran away.

"Not again!" Tara sighed and got out with her rifle. Bonnie did the same and spoke: "Mrs. P drive to your family. We can walk the rest. And take that BITCH with you." She closed the door. A few colored balls flew around in the air and made unnerving loud noises. The entire road was illuminated by different colors. Huge things -helicopters- flew through the air and unnerved her further. She saw Tara run through the labyrinth of cars.

"Wait!" She ran after her friend. She couldn't see far since cars blocked view to everywhere. _Now I get why she didn't mock me. Tara made clear I was out of range for her. But she's even meaner than normally. But why? She's only been so mean once. And that was after Wannaweep._

Bonnie ran past a red van, behind a yellow cab and than past a small truck. Finally Tara got back into view. She ran faster, knowing that she and Tara could both run for long. Cheerleading demanded high endurance. Again Tara escaped her sight but quickly came back into view. Bonnie got to her highest speed. It was clear that she could get lost. And she didn't want to go to the mall without her friend Tara.

Not after what had happened. Luckily the cold went away since she kept running.

---

Everything was dark. Nothing but darkness.

_What is this place? It's... lonely._

A feminine voice came: "Do you wish to sleep?"

_I don't know. Maybe. Who are you?_

"That's not important just now. Do you wish to sleep?"

_Who are you? That's not unimportant!_

"I have many names. None of them matter. I am the guardian of slumber and health."

_Oh yeah very helpfull. I won't talk to strangers._

"I'm not a stranger. You know me for your whole life."

_---_

Bonnie kept running. A driver honked and she almost shivered from it. But it was a good sign. It mean Tara wasn't too far away. She had almost panicked after loosing sight of her friend. She ran past a few cars and looked around. No sight. So she got onto a motorblock of one car and looked around. Normally the greedy looks of two teen-boys would have kept her from it but this was an emergency.

"There!" She spotted Tara running maybe fourty feet away from her through a "sidelane". Bonnie thought where her friend would run to and started a sprint. After one minute of running and tracing Tara, who seemed to disappear everytime she looked, the travel took an end. Just a few hundred feet away from the malls frontentrance Tara stood. She made a dash with only little to none exhaustion.

---

"Have you decided?"

_THE HELL NO! Maybe if you tell me your name. But not earlier._

_Come on! _

_---_

"Why did you run away?" Tara asked. No response came. "Really I want to know!" Bonnie got around a truck's corner and looked.

Tara stood a few feet away from Max who leant against a wall and kept breathing hard. Her rifle lay on the ground. Bonnie said:

"What are you doing? You can't just run away from... Connie."

"Stop-asking-" He threw out between breaths.

"Why? You never explain stuff and rarely talk at all. And if you say something it's kryptic!" She said, sounding agressive. Tara gave her a look.

"You-won't-believe-stop asking-"

"How do you wanna know?" Tara asked. Her voice sounded carefull and nice.

"People-died-" Bonnie was about to ask something as an air-raid siren started it's loud howl. A second chimed in, and a third started. She frowned and looked around, just as Tara.

"Wait isn't that-" She began.

"Too-late-" Max stopped leaning and weakly walked towards the mall. The weapon hung loosily in his hands. Tara ran to block his way. He raised his weapon.

"Go away!" The voice didn't sound very convincing and the weapon shook much. Not only from the breathing.

"Put that gun down and we can talk." Tara said determined. Bonnie made a step forward but stopped as he reaimed his weapon.

At her.

---

"I am Morphia."

_Morphia who?_

"Daughter of the moon, watcher and bringer of sleep and sweet forgetting. Now: Do you wish to sleep?"

_Hmmm. Why not? But why you're asking?_

"Don't worry. I'll take care." The darkness was illuminated by a candlelight.

_I'm gonna go there. _

_---_

"Wait you can't just shoot!" Bonnie sounded shocked. He slowly walked backwards, away from them. His eyes wandered around just as the weapon. "Oh I can. Stay away and nothing happens!" But Tara slowly came closer.

"No one is gonna hurt you. Put that thing away and we'll talk this out." She sounded very nice and carefull. He shook his head.

"No more talk! Enough useless words have been spoken! Enough lies, enough broken vows and way too many insults!"

Tara slowly walked closer. He took a few steps away from her. He looked even more nervous.

"Umm if you're still sad about what I said-" Bonnie started.

"ENOUGH false apologies! You gave ignorance and hatred is what you get back!" His voice trembled and he withdrew the pistol while holding the gun lefthanded before his chest. The pistol shook heavily. Tara walked further and touched the weapon. She made the arm show downwards. He stared at her with disbelief and fear.

"Tell me what's bothering you. Or did I ever hurt you?"

"You... you won't listen just like the rest!" It sounded like a weak defense. Tara gave Bonnie a look to stay behind.

---

_Wow. Looks nice. And it's warm- wait what is that? _"NO!" _What- where's the candle? _"NO! You shall sleep!" _Whow. _

Suddenly everything came back. The pain, eyes, ears and heartbeat. The wind, speed and night. Shego opened her eyes.

"Welcome under the living!" Drakken spoke and hugged her deeply. It didn't hurt. It felt nicely warm.

---

"I will listen."

His eyes darted around in high speed, searching for threats and, more important, escape routes. "I want it all to stop! Just stop!"

"What -"

"NO questions! Please!" He suddenly sank down with his head on the knees. The weapon didn't fit into the picture. Bonnie slowly came closer and knelt down beside him.

"I just want it all to stop! The memories shall stop!" His voice was close to tears. Bonnie slowly put an arm on his shoulder. He threw himself behind and raised the huge weapon at her. "Go away! Just go away! You make the memories come back!"

Tara looked at it. He seemed to fear them like a sheep its slaughterer. Tears ran from his fearwidened eyes.

"I could help make the memories stop coming back. I guess." Bonnie said.

"You- can?"

"I've got an idea: Why shouldn't we go to the mall? It's safe there. We can eat something and talk then." She suggested.

"And Bonnie's dad told us to go there remember?" Tara asked.

He flinched. "I don't want to remember!"

"It's Da- Henry's order. So get up." Bonnie extended a hand to help him up. He didn't take it but slowly got up himself.

They slowly marched towards the mall. She was about to ask something when Tara gave her a look to don't.

---

Drakken slowly released the hug and got up. She tried to do so but a huge burning fire in her shoulder stopped that attempt. Drakken quickly put hands on her shoulders.

"No lay still Shego!"

"What... happened?" She asked. Everything was somehow far away. Except for Drakkens warm hands. He didn't wear his gloves.

A new voice came: "You have been shot. I'm amazed you're still alive."

"How can you say that?" Drakken yelled at the man. "Shego's the strongest person I know! Of course she makes it!"

_Make what? And where's that candlelight? And that voice? _Slowly everything came back. How she drove around, how that guy had shot her. "I'll kill that bastard! No matter if he tried to shoot himself!"

"That wasn't him. It was a Dark One." _A dark one? What the hell is that? And where is that voice? And why am I so numb? _

"I'm tired..." She whispered. Drakken arched a brow at that. The last thing she saw was a small red tube into her arm. And Drakken's hands kept warmly covering her shoulder. It felt wonderfull.


	33. Od and a wakeup call

Hello dear Reader. Another chapter of the story. Disclaimer stood in the first chapter.

Od and Derrick walked past an old warehouse. A long street came into view. Small houses stood in rows among said street. Most houses had a driveway and garage. No person, animal or vehicle could be seen. Flowers and trees decorated the area at some spots. Their leafless arms stretched into grey air. Everything was covered in greyish snow. Peacefull.

"Hey this looks like a blanket you know." Od stated. Derrick didn't understand what that meant so he went on:

"It's like a white blanket of some sort. Covers everything. Like as if nothing had happened."

"Now I get it." Derrick looked around. They had walked for about fifteen minutes and had left the old warehouse-district.

"Man I tell you: Those old warehouses were creepy."

_Indeed. _Derrick thought and turned around to give the old buildings a look. Old cranes filled the skyline, their old metallic arms stretched towards heaven. Their thin and black scelletal limbs and straws made a clear contrast compared to the grey heaven. Old brown steelropes loosily hung down, numb and lifeless. Everytime the harsh cold wind blew the old rustbrown ropes swung weakly among the loud whistling. And heavy shivering came whenever the wind made its whiplash on his body. The cold was penetrating and slowly crept into any part of them.

Od shiverd just as he did. The snapping of teeth and shaking of knees sounded from them.

"We should go on." Derrick said. They walked past a house. Its old windows gaped at them, the door slowly opened with a loud crack. It turned in an unnervingly slow and tenacious move. Derrick readied his small weapon just as Od did. Both aimed at the door. But nothing came out.

They exchanged looks. Again the door kreeked as its old joints moved among the blowing wind. Derrick walked forward while his eyes kept the door in view. Od followed a second later. After a few moments the wind howled. Both shuddered heavily, not only from the cold. Its heavy loud noise brought up snow that had lain around and made it fly around them. The small cristalls danced like a tornado around its eye. They wizzed in circles and rose to ten feet hight, only to then fly away in different patterns.

They covered their faces until the harsh onslaut of snow siezed. As soon as it was gone they dared to take a look. No one and nothing stood on the street. Slowly their arms lowered and they looked around. Derrick didn't feel good, he never did when something heavy was coming on. Through narrowed eyeshe observed the area. Nothing.

"Whow this is creepy man!" Od said through his 'mask'. Derrick nodded and walked, Od followed suit.

They walked further and the wind blew. Once again they stopped and made themselves small to give less space to the wind. This time there was no whirl around them, the heavy snow got thrown against their backs from behind. A loud howl, resembling a scream, echoed weakly within the bestial attack of cold snow. It ate into their muscles as seemingly a thousand needles stinged into any point of meat.

As their eyes opened they saw a few persons standing on the street before them. About three men in different clothing. They were injured but seemingly didn't mind. The huge frost and ice in their wounds didn't bother them either. Also slightly blue-black limbs were not important. They just stood there and watched the two strangers. Derrick scoffed.

The persons moved closer. Most of them limped heavily and one fell to the ground. It rose again. Od came closer to him and whispered:

"I bet those are Zombies man!" Derrick nodded at that. It sounded farstretched but the megathing that ate Saw hadn't been normal either.They both bent down and aimed their weapons. Then Derrick realised that the persons were too far away for good hits. So he got up again and walked closer. Od followed. The persons stopped as soon the two had got twenty feet closer. Firing noises came.

After a few moments all undead fell. But Derrick heard something nearby. It was like a collective mourning yell. It came through the streets, houses, garages and backstreets. Once again the wind blew and both were forced to shut their eyes. When they opened them persons stood everywhere. They could hardly be seen through the curtain of snow that whizzed around them. Both tensed and aimed. But they kept waiting for a reaction. Which didn't come.

Until the wind howled once again, throwing snow at them and blocking view. After that the persons, each one of them, stood a bit closer. At least two dozens of people surrounded them. They stood distant from each other in a circle. Od gulped heavily. The undead shambled towards them after one single mourn from far away. Od shot one in the head and another into the leg. Derrick fired into a group and fell another two. But one rose again. He realised that only headers would be lethal and aimed longer.

He was rewarded with a good hit. Od did the same and made two clean hits. But the rest gained ground and was about thirty feet close. Derrick realised they were about to be encircled and ran towards a three man group. His friend followed. They both stopped after a few seconds to reaim their weapons. A few more shots rang and three undead, who had stood in the way, fell. Both ran through the"ring's" hole and sped over the street towards a house. Then Derrick noticed a person standing in the door. It's hand rose.

---

Everything was kinda warm and nice. The ground was cold but something warm was around her. She felt sheltered like never before. It somehow filled her. And isolated her from the cold. A slight shockwave went through her body but the warmth made it bearable. It even made the wave be somewhere far away. She cuddled a bit closer to the warmth and slowly opened her eyes. A black shirt was to be seen. And her that her hand rested on it. Again Kim closed her eyes.

A soft beating, regular and faint, touched her head. She listened closer and found out that it was a heartbeat. She listened to the beat and a slight tiredness came over her. Her left index finger circled on the black shirt. An unknown thought forced her to slowly rise. Through sleepy eyes Kim found out that it was Ron she sideways lay upon. She jerked up and stood beside him.

He seemed to be asleep. It eased her very much. It would be very difficult to explain why they had lain there. And why she had enjoyed it so much. She looked around: They were on a houses roof. So no one saw them. She sighed reliefed, knelt down beside Ron and looked at him. Kim blushed at the thought she had lain so close to him and had enjoyed it.

"I just hope he doesn't find out..." She mumbled. One time they had switched brains (and bodies) so she knew how much his hormons would freak out. Not that it would be his fault. Kim had felt, when she had been in his body, how much his body reacted when seing any girl. And especially when she (in his body) saw herself. She shuddered at the memory of that weird story. Even if there had been a few good sides.

"He's pretty good at hiding that everytime he sees a girl. I can't hide that when I see Josh." Kim had found another one of the few things Ron could do while she couldn't. He twitched slightly, got up and lead a hand to his head. Above them a black helicopter flew forward.

"Owww man where am I?" He asked himself.

"Don't know Ron." Kim answered.

He stood up and looked around while rubbing his head. She wondered if there was a problem:

"Are you allright?"

"Kim! You're fine! Oh yes I am. Just a headache." Ron finally noticed Kim being there. She smiled. He always seemed to care more about her than about himself.

"What happened? Everything's kinda foggy in my memory." She asked.

"You kept looking into that... moving wall and I got you into the chopper. No big." It sounded like he hid something.

"Really? So you saved me right?" She wanted to know clearly if that could be: Ron saving her.

He seemed uneasy on that topic: "Umm... kinda. No big KP, really." Rufus stuck his head out of the pocket and looked around sleepily.

"And where is the chopper's crew? Shouldn't we still be in that chopper? I'll ask Wade." She took out her device and Wade's face came.

"Where are Wade? And whose chopper was that?" She gave a sideglance to Ron. He kept looking around and didn't notice her looking. His body caught her full attention: First the legs. It would have been funny if he had lost his pants in a strange manner again. Not that she would mind. She tried to imagine him just in boxershorts. Tried to see his chest, ribcage, waist, legs and, most important, his nice face.

Just the face that always held a smile for her. She closed her eyes and the image slowly came up. The wonderfull eyes that always gave her a slightly warm feeling in the stomach, the sweet blushing he always had when losing his clothing, and the sweet goofy smile that always made her happy and smile herself. And everytime she smiled or was otherwise happy he lit up. Not that anything pulled his mood down ever.

"Kim!" Wade's yell suddenly made her snap back to whatever she had left. Her eyes seemed to glue on Ron but as soon as he turned around and looked at her she quickly broke her little 'expedition'. He came closer and she already feared he would have noticed her intensive staring. A gentle crimson formed on her cheeks as he stood beside her. She quickly got in fresh air andthe color faded away. She hoped that none of the boys noticed anything.

"I lost connection for some time. I haven't found out who owns these helicopters yet."

Ron and Kim arched brows and exchanged looks at that.

"Hey I'm not perfect too! They have multilayer ice-breaker antibots, several wrong-hint servers, hundreds of datatraps and uncountable dummy programms. Until I FOUND what I want to hack they got me." Wade took a sip from his soda.

"No beeping blooping and blopping computerstuff?" Ron asked.

"No computerstuff. At least not for now."

Both Kim and Ronmade an oh-sound in unison.

"Anyway I've got sattelite overview. And the mayor has held a speech. Wanna hear it?"

Both nodded. The screen faded and a man clad in a blue suit who sat behind a huge desk came into view. A small namesign stood before him on said desk. To his left stood two men in police officer's uniforms. The mayor spoke:

"Dear citizens: With this I order the evacuation of Middleton. Each and every one of you must go to the Middleton mall. There you will be flewn out with helicopters. These Men here will explain why I do this."

One of the men coughed, the camera focused on him.

"I am Chief Hendriks of Upd. About one day ago a sickness broke out in Upperton. It is extremely contageous and has already cost many lives. Just this plague is coming to Middleton. Due to lack of a treatment we evacuate the city."

He raised the remainining stump of his right arm and pointed it to the other man. Said man spoke:

"I am Chief Grunningham of Lpd reserve station. Most of you heard of the prison-break of Mark Twain. Of what happened at the mhs, and of what happened at the hospital. Also the stadium is known to you. This is another reason for evacuation: We assume that a biological bomb has been planted somewhere in Middleton."

Then the mayor spoke again: "If you find anyone who hasn't heard of this order tell them. No one is allowed to stay. NO one. And besides: The O-boys play at the mall. For free."

The screen faded and Wade's face came back. "That's been send about half an hour ago."

"You got any information about-"

"Yep. Told police about the places you wanted to look at. Except for one company. The people there totally refuse to leave. And-"

He suddenly stopped and looked closer at his screen. Then he started to type orders. Kim patiently waited for him to finish. After a minute boredom packed and she looked around.

Again her gaze halted on Ron as soon as it had started to wander. It always did lately. He stood a few feet away and looked at the area. No matter how much she tried her look always focused on him. It hadn't been like that forever. It had started with the whole moodulator thing. Her eyes wandered from his legs to the chest and to his face. It always had that funny freckles. It held a smile. Just the smile that made her melt somehow. Everytime lately.

She looked at the device in her hand like as if it would be a revelation. Ron came closer. She felt caught, captured. He still came closer. The heartbeat rate rose and her grip tightened. "Please don't let him have noticed it!" She quietly thought. He -still- came closer. One part of her wanted him to come closer while the other wanted him to stay where he was. Her grip tightened and the eyes flew around as if seeking an escape route. It was almost the same feeling as with Josh. Just without the stupid blushing, stammering and a lot more intense.

But he still came. Her brain simply repeated the phrase: oh god oh fod all the time. The heart hammered heavily and the entire body was in high tension. He stood beside her. And looked at the device. She mentally sighed and the tension slowly vanished. He hadn't noticed her staring. But she knew he would one day.

"Anything yet?" He asked.

"Oh... No. Wades still searching." It took all her strenght to not just keep staring into his eyes or stammer useless stuff and blush like a tomato. Her eyes saw the kimmunicator and Wade. He was furiosly typing in lightspeed. The fingers moved to fast to exactly see, instead they were nothing but a blur. Thick pearls of sweat ran down his forehead as he made a muffled hurrrrrrr sound. The left eye twitched two times as the typing increased. Loud noises came. Kim and Ron exchanged bewildered looks. The teeth were heavilly gritted.

"HUUUUrrrrrrr!" The boy kept smashing onto the keyboard in an unknown rage. Both spectators slowly moved the device and themselves a bit away. Then Kim suddenly noticed that one of hers and one of Ron's hands held the electronic thing. She bit her lower lip and sweat formed on her forehead as she realised that their hands touched on the devices backside.

"Haaaaaaaaarrr!" Wade yelled at the screen. Then suddenly a joystick popped out of the desk and he steered it using his left hand. The other kept typing faster than Mozart could have played. She silently wished to make a such noise too. But it would give her away. Then Wade suddenly threw himself back, releasing the devices. Ron let his hand go away too.

Wade and her sighed heavilly and in perfect unison. Kim suddenly stared at Ron. He still kept watching the screen. Wade's sigh seemed to have been louder. He leant back in his chair upright and kept staring into the ceiling. While breathing hard. It was obvious that he was exhausted. Then she could see a faint smile on his face as he raised an index finger in a victorious gesture. And brought it down to a button.

His picture faded and another came. It resembled a shakily made and badly done picture. It was basicly a black and white picture. She didn't know very much about photography but she belived it to be a coloured photo that had been done in the wrong way. Or it had been put to light too early or just in a wrong way. It meant that dark colours were bright on the picture and reverse. Except for a few things.

The picture seemed to show a room of sorts. Kim couldn't find out how big, wide or high it was. Everything was dark and black except for a little part of the right upper corner. In that corner stood a manlike shape. She couldn't make out any details since it must have stood with light in its back. But two slightly shining red orbs pierced the air, standing about at the place where humans have their eyes. It wasn't just a round orb but a bit of it's "light" seemed to shine through very thin white foggy light.

"Hey do you think I could get such lights for my next halloween mask? They look SO cool!" Ron stated. She nodded but wasn't really paying him attention.

"Booya!" He exclaimed and gave Rufus, who had come out of the pocket once more, a high five.

Something about the picture drawed her full attention. It was another shape that stood somewhere at the left front of the picture. She hadn't understood why and how the red lights were there but then it came: "Lights...mask." She quietly mumbled. And understood. It was obviously some sort of mask with light amplification or uv-light. The wearer also wore a helmet that somehow felt familiar. She just couldn't put the finger at where it came from and how she knew.

A thin tube went from the mask's mouthpiece to somewhere underneath an armorplate. The red lights were sharp and piercing. She felt as if the figure could just jump out of the picture any minute. The way it stared at her made her feel uneasy. It seemed to stare at and into her even through the fact it wasn't alive and there. And around the red dots was a ring of blackness, appearently because a part of the facial 'armor' was above the groundlayer that inheritated the lenses. At least she believed it to be lenses. And that wasn't the only uneasing thing.

The shape held a heavy weapon in what could be its hands. She suddenly took a step back. It had felt like the thing was about to shoot her. She shook her head mentally cursed for her stupor. Ron looked at her quizically. She laughed nervously. He looked worriedly at her and then back at the picture. Again she kept thinking about how much he cared for her. The shape in the background seemed to aim at the two teens too. But it also felt like they wouldn't _need _to aim and shoot at them to do something bad to them. Something very bad.

She narrowed her eyes. Had the thing moved? Even though she couldn't find any detail that had changed she felt that way. In fact, Kim couldn't find any detail. Everything was there but somehow not complete, finished, just black. Almost like the blackness didn't _need_ details. The bad feeling inside her stomach increased further. Then she noticed one thing:

The darkness was pierced by even more red orb's pairs. She hadn't noticed them before, ceartainly because she had focused on the two obvious ones. But after she found one they seemed to actaully _appear _on dark parts of the picture. And about 92 of the picture were pure blackness. She felt like someone, or something, was watching her. Like more then before would watch her.

"Wade can you get that picture brighter? I can't see any details. It's just like as if-"

"-someone paints a picture and only makes a black blob without differences in the blackness?" Ron finished. Her eyes drowned in his. Suddenly all the guttwisting emotions were washed away with warmth. Not the somehow idiotic and embarrassing warmth Josh had created with just being there. It was a comforting emotional warmth. She had to fight back the urge to just deeply hug him. Or even cuddle closely.

"I already tried." Wade's voce suddenly interrupted. She snapped back from Ron's wonderfull eyes to reality. "But it didn't work."

Kim and Ron straed at him in confusion. "Hey I'm not suparman! It's like the picture would refuse to change at all!" Then Kim had an idea:

"Are there more than... eight red orbs?" She had seen two other pairs closely to the shapes. But they were entirely hidden by darkness. Or embedded. In this case she felt no difference.

"No. Just eight." Wade answered. Kim frowned at that.

"But I saw more red orbs!" Ron looked at her with concern in his eyes. "I swear!" She exclaimed. "And the thing moved... somehow."

Wade looked at her in disbelief.

"Seriously I felt like that thing would be looking into me!" Kim said. Her voice had got a slight notch of shock that they didn't believe.

She took another look at the picture, which had been made smaller to fit onto the screen together with wade. The figure raised and arm at her. The other, together with the weapon was nowhere to be seen. She felt like something got into her, tried to take thoughts away. Thoughts of Ron. She quickly looked away.

"What is it KP?" Ron asked. One hand touched her shoulder.

"It raised an arm at me! Put the picture away!"

Wade did as ordered and spoke: "I got this picture from some secret archive. I couldn't find out who owned it and who used it. But the picture somehow drew up my attention. So I barely made it to hack my way free. It was the same database like from these helicopters. Don't know why it was secured that hard though."

"Maybe someone wanted it to be closed away?" Ron asked.

"Well but why, and how, did it get online? And who put it online?" Wade asked in return. Kim gave a surprising response:

"Maybe it wanted to get free itself." Wade looked at her in disbelief. Ron did so too but she knew he believed her. He just didn't understand how and why she thought that. And how a picture could actually come free.

"Who made it anyway? And what's the title of this picture?" Kim asked.

"Two men: A Mark Twain and a Jim Cokraine. Mark Twain is that guy who got into jail two years ago and broke out earlier. Jim Cokraine kept telling everyone he'd be followed. Then he was found dead in his prisoncell one day later. Not even the cameras showed anything."

Kim thought: Wasn't Mark Twain the short guy she had tried to get back to prison? And what was the title of the picture?

"Mark Twain kept telling the same story of something hunting him and that he'd be safe nowhere. Then he kept a low profile and got captured two days later. He insited on being kept away from the media. The court believed him since he was the only survivor and culprit of that huge massmurder."

"Massmurder?" Ron asked. He sounded frightened and the hand on Kim's shoulder gripped a bit harder. But it still was gentle.

"Yeah. And the title is:" He pressed a button and the pictures backside, including the bad feeling and a badly done handwriting, appeared.

The Dark

---

Od kept running. It seemed all futile but he kept on. Panic kept striking his back with a huge whip. His dad had told him one thing about correctly running away: Never look behind. Just that he did.

Two undead tried to intercept his path. He just raised the small machinepistol and fired into them while running. It merely halted them in their slow shambling. But it was enough to make them lose balance for long enough. He ran past them and felt their hungry moans. And their grips. Fortunately they were futil ones. He ran through a small garden towards a metal fence. Something was coming closer.

He did something he had learned from streetbounces: He threw himself to the ground and made a role. Whatever it was jumped, flew or whatever above him. He quickly got up and jumped towards the fence. After making a quick look he spotted Derrick running towards him. Od kept on running.

The A he had got in school proved usefull as he sprinted over a street. A formation of persons, maybe twelve, shambled towards him. He quickly ran past them and got to longer street. He knew they would keep following him if he would run there. Because they could see him there. And he felt like that would a mistake. So Od lowered his pace. Running without a proper warmup wasn't good.

He looked back after having done another couple of yards and felt the bad feeling again. This time he jumped behind on his back and felt somwthing wooshing by. It landed on the marble beside him and turned around: It was like a thin scelleton with a triangled head. A few red dots seemed to be its eyes. It made a loud shreek-sound and prepared to launch at him he raised the rifle and fired fullauto.

Most bullets whooshed by and ricoched from the walls and ground somewhere behind the two opponents. The heavy recoil of ak made it harder too. A few bullets hit the leg and side of it. For two 'steps' of its insectoid legs it limped. Od felt safe and got to reload. But something or someone told him to not. To pull out the mac and turn leftways on the ground. He did it.

Suddenly the thing became nothing but a fast blur and its leg 's claws digged into the marble. Its stance somehow resembled a dog. Just that a dog didn't cut open streetmarble like paper. He withdrew the mpi and aimed at its head. It made a disgustingly loud shreek and his ears began to ring. He wanted to say a marky comment like: "Goodbye fucker!" But once agian the thing inside him demanded him to not do it and roll away. He did it.

A small crater with its claws inside stood where his head had been earlier. His eyes widened and he obeyed the 'command' to shoot at it's eyes.

The thing dropped dead as he fired a burst. Morbid fascination packed him and he looked closer. But the thing demanded to stand up and run to the right. He did as 'ordered' and was 'rewarded' with a Hand gripping into empty space instead of his eye. Suddenly the unknown power took over his arms and eyes as any doubt was pushed aside. A shot ended Derricks life. Again.


	34. Invisible things and Ron

The wind howled once again. It tore into everyones body and made them all shiver. The chief ran over the container and into the house. It's old door didn't close anymore. How should it when it was somewhere else? He aimed through a hole in the ground and fired on what lay below. Two undead persons found their last grave. It didn't look good.

They were encircled but that wasn't the problem. Ammunition ran short but that didn't matter. The bioartillery walked in range for direct fire. And they were cut off from any other humans. But all that was not the real problem.

All undead simply walked by. They ignored the few defenders, their bait, the lure. Thanks to their height and the missing of stairs they were safe. If the undead stayed long enough to notice they couldn't get their victims they simply walked away to some other food. Such was the case. He looked through a destroyed window: Most of the construction workers had left. But a few remained in their "fortified" building. It was nothing but the scelleton of an unfinished house.

A few people with yellow helmets ran around inside their house while two worked on a not yet sealed door. A few more put barb wire to the second floor windows to prevent anyone from climbing in.

He looked closer: Ironfenced gates and fences kept the complex shut. A huge wide and open area stretched around the unfinished house, which was three floors high. A ramp rested in a very huge window and looked ready to be used as a walkway. All windows and doors on the groundfloor have been shut with concrete but one. The red bricks clearly marked where these "holes" had been. Holes in a wall. A wall to shelter humans.

From their hunters.

"Whoever worked to make that empty hull a fortress had done good work." The chief quietly mumbled to himself and fired another two rounds. An old lady stood infront of the fence. He was about to yell at the lady when he noticed that she grabbed the fence and tried to throw it over. He fired but missed. Then he realised that he had only one more round. He aimed calmly. The old lady had already been missing her left jaw. He fired. From then on her right was off too.

Three workers watched the old woman drop to the ground. They had suddenly stopped at the fences metallic rumbling. Slowly they went back to putting lamps on the ground. Four others made an electric wire on kneeheight, they should to work as traps to make any undead stumble and fall. Another seven kept digging threnches infront of the walls, raising the height between ground floor and first floor.

More undead shambled, stumbled and barely walked towards the fence. Some already started to rattle at it. The chief knew it wouldn't hold long. The one at Upperton airforce base hadn't lasted two minutes. Two dozens of people could easily throw it over.

---

"Danny what the hell are you doing?" Helen asked her partner. She was driving and Danny seemed to be fumbling around at the back of their car.

"Uhh... " He murmured and got back to his seat: "Just checking for the shotgun." She arched a brow.

"Gotta be prepared." He said. That was how she knew him. A bit insecure sometimes but always determined.

"For what? For some freakin' zombie coming around?"

"Yep."

"Oh please! You know our chief said the reports were wrong. We're out to get those two fugitives remember?"

"Don't you think it's outright strange? I mean that we always come too late to any firefights and crimes lately?" He asked in return.

She just sighed. It was pointless to argue with him in that state of mind. She wished that the radio would say something, but nothing came.

"And isn't it weird we never find any corpses? At the school, stadium and hospital? Jack told me he saw a corpse just vanish!"

"Jack is an idiot!"

"So? Does that make the facts vanish? It's like someone doesn't want us to find evidence of the crimes..."

She sighed again. Danny jumped to conclusions quickly. Sometimes they proved right. Sometimes.

"And your brother saw that other criminal: A teenager! And he said-"

"What my BROTHER says doesn't matter!" She yelled at him. He moved away a few centimeters and seemed to be taken aback. That was another thing she disliked about her partner. A few moments passed in uncomfortable silence.

"Sorry." She mumbled. He quickly recovered. He understood that her temper and not herself had spoken. Even if it was a lot more often since reports of black men walking around.

A few minutes of uncomfortable silence followed. She remembered how angry her brother had been at the chief:

_"What do you mean we won't do anything?" _

_"We have proof that it was the fugitive. And your hallucinations are explain-"_

_"I saw my mates get slaughtered dammit! No human could have done that!"_

_"No human? I understa-"_

_"Dan saw the hanging George and the newbie too. And NO human can take two people's SKIN and hang them on their own guts! And you heard the reports about the corpses that looked like George and him just a block away." _

_"What reports? I haven't seen any." _

_"WHAT!"_

_"Besides you are suspended from Duty for two weeks. You've been through much stress. Dismissed."_

---

"I wonder what Bro's doing..." She mumbled to herself. Danny seemed to have heard it and spoke:

"Me too. And you heard that Jack had been in the hospital? Bit too much of a coincedence for me. And shouldn't we investigate these murders instead of stupidly hunting people?"

"They killed almost a dozen cops."

"So these few are more valuable than all the civilians who died?"

"Danny that-"

"And the doctors, patients, footballplayers and students?"

That truly silenced her. Danny always made her react more and stronger than other men. At least without getting a beating. Helen was no violent person, but she hated men who nerved her. Or harassed her. And she had quickly learned that she had to show men how far they were allowed to go with her. Danny however seemed to be the only man who wasn't affected by her beauty. That made him the only man Helen trusted.

"And why the hell are so many cops send off duty? The whole thing smells bad. And-" He suddenly stopped and closed his eyes. She stopped the car.

"What?"

"Do you hear it too?"

Helen concentrated. Very far away a few noises came. She knew that sort of noises.

They got out of the car and looked around. She was about to grip the radio when she heard steps. They echoed loudly from around a corner. Danny came to her and withdrew his pistol. She did the same and they ducked behind the cars engine. The person, male and with a cowboyhat, ran around the corner. Helen saw the weapon and shouted:

"Stop!" He didn't stop so she shouted again. He still ran towards them and raised the rifle. She quickly aimed and was about to fire. The man jumped sideways as the shot broke. Danny hadn't fired, he had stood up and ran towards the person. Said person spotted him and stood up, after that it threw itself on Danny and forced him to the ground.

Then something whooshed over both prone men. Before she could see what exactly it was the thing vanished into thin air. She blinked twice and aimed on the person. It's behaviour irritated her so far that she didn't fire. It quickly turned into random directions and aimed its rifle into air. Then it suddenly rolled sideways and again something whooshed past. She didn't hear a noise but felt a vibration in the air.

The person fired into nothing and something made an unnerving screeching noise. One of the bullets seemed to have made a hit into something, for a split second it stood in the air. After that the thin leg-like thing disappeared as soon as it had come. It looked like a white ring had moved over the straw's surface and everywhere it had been the straw had vanished.

Danny stood up again and was about to do something when the person threw him on his back. Again the air vibrated, that time between the man and Danny. The person wanted to fire at her partner. She wanted to fire. She really wanted to but something kept her from it. A paralyzation unknown to her gripped around the triggerfinger and hands. It's grip was made of steel and it mercilessly smashed her will to shoot. Her eyes widened as the rifle shot, bullets escaped and yellow stripes flew. Helen saw any single projectile cut its way through empty sky.

The rounds seemed to stick inside the air as the fullauto hammering stopped. It had been about twenty rounds and she couldn't believe Danny wasn't harmed. She stood up and ran to her partner. Then something caught her eye. It was the bullets who seemed to got stuck inside the sky, like as if halted in time. Or stopped and stuck in meterthick marmelade.

And with an interdimensional noise the bullets vanished. It created a barely feelable shockwave that roamed through walls, the car and her. What they stuck in got visible and covered the bullets. A huge grey-white ring moved and formed a sleak thing, almost like a thinner trashcan. Then it went among the surface of a belly and two thin straws. It seemed to shape a form. The form of a body of some sort.

---

Richard was a bit confused. He heard gunfire just a few hundred meters away and ran towards its source. His two friends followed suit, the two agents took longer to fall into his rythm. Houses, old, covered in dust, brown, grey and hungry, followed their every movements with their staring windows. An unsettling feeling spread in his stomach. He gripped his weapon closer and ran. After a few minutes breathings increased and they all, except for the two younger agents, had to slow down their pace. He sensed that the two agents were displeased at least..

"Why do we follow you mister?" One of them asked.

"Because we should stay together and because we have a task to do."

They didn't seem satisfied with that answer but remained quiet. Two minutes later the group walked past a corner and saw what was going on: Two hardly recognisable old warehouses were occupied by four people. These four kept firing on people who walked by and towards a building site. A subtle sense of dread gripped his gut. He moved faster.

He ran past an old car. It reminded him of his own old age. But nothing would stop him, no matter how long ago he had served.

"I refuse to open fire on civilians!" One of the agents said. Richard sensed it would be the start of a mutiny.

"We won't shoot on civilians and we'll ask these people why they do that. If they are criminal we'll arrest them."

The agent scoffed in obvious dislike of his failed mutiny. All five of them ran towards the buildings. Richard noticed that two truck containers were thrown over between the two houses. He thought it would be a walkway and barricade. Two of the people that kept being cut down stood up again. He looked at them in deep confusion and worry. These people could swallow bullets without dying...

His two friends sensed the unease and quickened their pace. The two agents followed without arguing even though Richard felt that one wouldn't do that much longer. A few of the persons shambled towards them. He was about to tell them to stop when his instincts made him duck behind a body. Single shots came from the building and the people fell. To his surprise the gunners seemed to not shoot at him.

The people came from somewhere behind the building, it lay between their entering spot and Richard's group. Richard reached the wall. Then he realised something important: He couldn't just jump up the wall. And something else: The people that were fired upon build a solid wall around them. Everyone was encircled by two walls.

"Get up here!" A voice shouted. His stomach agreed and he took one of the hands that came stretched out from the container. He gave his two friends a look and they got the hint. Two weapons, aimed from his friends and at the two agents backs, stopped their intended mutiny and everyone climbed up, one after one. Something gripped the last agent and pulled him downwards. Richard turned around to see him get covered with bodies.

He gulped at the sight. Maybe a dozen of people bowed over the man and his outstretched arm reached into the air, he sook for help.

Which didn't come.

Richard was about to bow down and grip the hand when someone signalised him not to do so. He turned around to see a hand on his shoulder and bright blue eyes. A Gunslingers eyes. Their blue was piercing and deep, he felt like they could see deeply into him.

Another look showed a flood of people at the place where he had stood before. Hungry hands futilly stretched at the few humans on the wall.

"Sorry about your friend. They're the undead. I'm the chief. Would you please follow us we need your machinegun."

---

Kim was in her usual mood again, thanks to Ron. It had token just one smile to make her feel better again. In fact she had barely made it to not sink away in his eyes once again. She silently congratulated herself for that with a smile. Then she wondered about how difficult escaping his wonderfull eyes was. Their beautifull color, the intensity and the fact they were always warm made her sigh and relax.

Suddenly Kim rubbed her head and mused what had happened. A hand moved towards her aching back and she remembered: Her thoughts of Ron had distracted her so much to loosen her grip around the rope. Ron came into view. He bowed over her.

"You allright KP? You suddenly fell." His voice was full of concern.

She looked up and saw that his face was filled with the same concern. She quickly took Ron's hand and let it pull her up. She didn't release the hand, instead she firmly gripped harder. It was a good feeling to just hold his warm hand gently in hers. She kept looking at her fingers: They kept moving among Ron's fine muscles slowly and soft. It was like Einstein said: Time is relative. And inside that moment she could stay for very long.

"We should go to the mall right?" He asked. She just nodded. It looked like she was barely awake and inside a dream.

She remembered how she had woken up rather often lately: Very much entangled in her blanket and with sweat all over her body. Her arms kept gripping the pillow tightly against her body and her legs somehow whirled themselves into the blanket. The alarmclock suddenly made her awake and the eyes shot up. Her lips had been pressed into the pillow in a very romantic kiss. She had looked at the pillow for a few long moments. Then she had tried to stand up with a highly confused mind only to fall upon the ground.

It had token her a few minutes to un-entangle her legs only to see that they had lain around the pillow and blanket in a very sexual, but still romantic, way. Then she had realised what she had dreamt of:

Ron.

And that happened rather often since the moodulator 'incident'. She still wondered how to ask him out for the prom. Her thoughts were engulfed with romantic pictures of her and him dancing. She knew the exact content of the dream:

His hands firmly on her back, hers around his neck. They stood very close and slowly moved, like in trance, over he floor. Everything was perfect: His hands and body radiated gentle warmth and comfort. The lights shut off due to a (by her prepared) energy breakdown and she had gently pulled his head closer with her hands.

Then their lips met. But everytime the still unknown feeling of kissing him got replaced by the stupid alarmclock. And the feeling of kissing a pillow. One time she had tried to trick the alarm by setting it one hour later. On the weekend. But it had, unfortunately, not worked.

Kim's face went crimson at the thought of her trying to trick herself to feel Ron kissing her in a dream.

"Kim you can let my hand go now ya know?"

She suddenly stepped back to the moment and didn't know what to say or do. So she just went a bit more red in the face and quickly withdrew her hands. She turned away and said:

"Thanks Captian Obvious." To hide her nervousness. Ron didn't say anything and she mentally slapped herself. She went mad at herself at the thought of having hurt Ron intentionally. She still didn't know what to dow when an idea came. It would barely work, and even if it did the effect wouldn't be very uneasing. But she tried since it was the only thing she could do.

She giggled nervously and turned around with a hand placed on her mouth.

"That was just a joke!"

He looked a her for a moment before weakly smiling: "Oh... hehe... " Then his face got a questioning expression and he pointed at her with an index finger.

"Does it just seem that way or are your jokes a bit less nice lately?" Rufus looked out of the pocket and had the same facial expression.

"Oh... yes! I mean no!" She stated and was surprised that Ron didn't notice how nervous she was. Kim guessed it would come from that he had never seen her nervous except when Josh was around. Ron eased and tried to unbuckle the rope he had used to climb down the house they had been on. He failed and his pants jolted away among with the rope. Both things flew towards the hook inside a wall's concrete several stores upwards.

She supressed a sigh at the sight of his bare legs. She bit her lower lip as the eyes slowly wandered upwards until they landed on his butt. Kim tried to get away from it but failed. Then she wondered about how it might be if his boxershorts woud fly away too. And quickly shook her head to get the thoughts away. Ron noticed and blushed.

"I know it's stupid... I really don't get why that ALWAYS happens!"

"Maybe 'cause I appreciate it?"

"Hehe... not funny, really." Rufus had jumped out of the pocket. He stood on Ron's shoulder and nodded. Kim climbed up the wall again and was more than emberessed to have said such a thing to Ron. After she got the pants and the hook she wondered about how far it was to the ground.

She quietly thanked god for that she hadn't thought of Ron earlier: It could have ended with broken bones or even with a snapped neck...

As soon as she got down and Ron 'reclothed' the kimmunicator rang. It seemed like a redemption.

"Kim I've got several biosignatures coming closer. They're similar to the ones you met in the park."

"What do you mean?" Kim looked around and couldn't see anything. No cops, no people, just snow. "I can't see anything."

Wade typed a few orders. "Try your infrared glasses. Maybe you see anything then."

"Where's mine?" Ron asked.

Kim put the device away and looked at the scene. They stood in an alley with a sidestreet to the left and a dark passage to the right. Infront lay a huge backyard, filled with a trash-container a van and a fireladder. She got out the infrared glasses and put them on. Her entire vision got a red touch and suddenly multiple figures filled the screen. One stopped moving over the trash-container as soon as Kim looked at it, two moved over the fireladder and two others seemed to glue on the walls. She gulped.

"Where's my glasses-" All the creatures raised their 'heads' towards them. Kim saw clusters of dots at what could be their faces. They changed their color and depth. Then they all made a loud shreek in unison and sped towards them with high speed. Two moved over the walls with seemingly gluing feet while two others ran through the snow. They had a strangely bowed way of movement and always swung their left and then their right back half while moving.

"Why does the snow mo- AHH!" Kim quickly grabbed Ron's hand and ran with him into the thin alley.

"No time!" She said and dropped him behind a pillar. One of the creatures already jumped at her. Kim ducked and gave it an upward kick, it flew over her and into a wall. But instead of weakly bouncing off from it and impacting the snow it just turned in the air and glued to the wall. After that it used the movement's energy to bounce off quickly and launched itself against her even faster. She made a backflip and its claws hit thin air as it flung by.

---

Ron didn't understand what happened. Kim jumped through the air and kicked into nothing. She slashed into thin air and rolled away. Then he had an idea. Maybe she fought something her thermoglasses showed. He thought they could have a failure or malfunctioned. But Wade had said she should activate her thermoglasses. So something else had to be the problem. Kim's grace awed him again.

He followed her every movement. They were fast and well done. He couldn't spot even one opening in her way of movement, nor could he see any mistake. She was perfect, just as her moving. A selfcontrol of any muscle he knew played its show infront of him. He knew that it was an overall perfection he could never achieve. It saddened him just as the fact that he couldn't do anything usefull in that moment.

Whatever Kim fought with, Ron couldn't see or otherwise sense it. He felt useless, like a liability. Then his face lit up. He had an idea. If the Kimmunicator could detect them from far away it could surely make them visible. He was about to yell towards his best friend in danger when he spotted a man. The man came closer to the ongoing fight with neverchanging steps. It didn't seem to care about the danger.

Ron ran towards the person when his stomach told him not to. He quickly understood why: Kim needed him. Again his mood rose as soon as he felt needed. He ran towards the fight and ignored the person. Then suddenly everything stopped. Her movements, the air's movements, everything seized to a state of nothing. He turned around to the person. Again he couldn't make out any feature or detail.

Except for the two red eyes. They looked like a agressive, dark and lurking animals, ready to strike. He suddenly felt the urge to just run away. He followed said urge, ran to Kim and grabbed her hand. She wanted to say something but he just pulled her among until she began to run herself. She could easily run faster but just raised her pace until they were on an even level.

"Why did you-"

"It's the same person like on the picture!" He remembered the lethal weapon in his other hand. The shotgun. They ran further into the dark sidealley as he heard a loud shreek. After that came bitter silence, but he felt that something was going on behind them.

Something bad. Something one should just run away from. If one could still run.

His breathing increased and he rested at a wall. Then it happened. Something simply appeared behind Kim. It had a triangled head with many red eyes. They gaped at her with blank nothingness, but somehow that nothing inherited a dark red hunger. Time slowed down as it came closer. Its appearance was acompanied by white rings that seemed to shape it as it appeared. Or became visible.

He wanted to change it, stop it from happening, stop it from coming, stop her from looking at him quizically, wanted to make her understand, know, fight, win. He felt like this would be the last time he saw her like this: Nice, caring, beautifull, sweet, innocent, alive. It raised one of its thin arms. He saw every spike, thorn, line, edge, detail, movement. He saw everything in its own inevitable state.

Then Kim's expression changed to worry and she tilted her head. It seemed to take hours. But every hour with her would be punished by decades without her. Every movement between them took moments whose true value he had never seen. Everything he could offer was not worth one of these moments.

_shoot_

The leaden paralyse went off his limbs and suddenly they allowed him to move. Coldness drove the fear, insecurity and shyness away from his heart until it was devoid of any emotion. The weapon raised. He closed his left eye when the metallic deathbringer stood still.

It aimed at Kim.

He directed it past her head. She took a step back in time and distance and her eyes widened. Without knowing she stepped away from her saviour and closer to her doom. The clawed arm went closer to her neck. Every muscle in his body tensed as his heart emptied and the finger bowed, gripped, felt: He pulled the trigger.

Kim's eyes widened even more and she began to move for a jumping to the side. It would have been too late for both the claw and the buckshot. Time returned to normal as any of his muscles returned to normal, time, him and the material realm. His mood lit up as he felt the known recoil pressing into his shoulder. The familiar yellow flash came and lead left both the weapon's and his own body.

But he missed. His heart filled with sadness and hatred against himself. It would be his fault she died. His fault. He wouldn't be able to bear the guilt.

Kim stopped in her preparing jump, the thing got thrown into the wall with a last shreek, dozens of thin yellow lance sawed through the air and the creature, a voice told Ron to pull Kim closer than ever and he obeyed.

Nothing happened. He felt Kim's body sharply pressed against his. That would normally have created a warm feeling inside him, but this time it didn't lower the fear that was already inside him. She was about to struggle free when he released her and looked at the passage behind them.

The person stood there. It had a huge and powerfull weapon in its hands. The red eyes kept blazing with the same crimson as earlier. It seemed to have the same pace as before as it came closer. Only one sound was heard: A rythmic clank of the ammunition its weapon had. Everytime the person stepped the sound came. But neither the snow, nor the air seemed to bend around it. No footsteps were left behind.

He was no weapons expert, but he knew that it had to smell like gunpowder. It didn't. Also no cartridges lay around. Nothing would be found as evidence, as proof.

Kim turned around and saw the thing, it was ritten to shreds and its once red eyes were empty and shallow. After that she looked back at Ron with confusement and anger in her eyes.

"What the hell were you doing?" Then she turned towards the person: "Thanks for the he-

_pull her close_

-lp." Kim then went back to Ron and her look got angry again. Before that could manifest in her green eyes Ron gripped her. He knew how to so her attempts of resistance were futile. He pressed her behind the metallic container he stood before and used himself as weight to keep her there.

It was, simply seen, an echange: His life for hers.

The apocalyptic hammering, with every single blow following its precessor faster than any human could hear, sounded again as the walls were illuminated by bright yellow muzzleflashes. His backpack, which he rarely wore on missions except when parachuting, offered no resistance as pure unearthly heat tore through it in at least fifty waves. They erupted in so short distances that he believed it to be one long torture.

He felt pure heat stream over his back and couldn't see Kim anymore. The eyes simply kept closed due to the immense pain. Something made him resist: The fact he could keep Kim alive. That counted, was important and was the truth. He summoned all the pictures of her he could find but her face, smile, bright eyes, sweet look and wonderfull hair slowly vanished. The person had its right arm stretched.

Towards him. It all just disappeared: His memories, emotions, heart, life, but most important: All pictures of her.

---

Kim couldn't believe what had happened. At first invisible things came and after that Ron shot at her. Nothing made sense. Especially all the yellow lances that flew past the tight alley were strange. It resembled nothing she had ever witnessed before. No deathray, no beam, nothing.

Ron fell to the ground. She still didn't know why he had pressed her against the wall. Red fluid filled the snow around the place he lay upon. She knew it was blood and knelt down beside him. The person before them had its left arm stretched towards them. It seemed to stay that way. Ron began to mumble but his words got more and more inaudible the longer he spoke. The longer the man stood there. Sirens came.

Kim ran towards the person to strike it when something cut through its head. It remained there without any movement. More and more things cut through it faster than Kim could count. She realised an oppurtunity to get Ron to a hospital. The beating this man would get for injuring her friend could wait. Not for long, of course, but it could still wait. She turned him to his chest and gave the person a sideglance.

It stood there still and unmoving like as if time, the slashes it got and the fact Ron bled wouldn't be of interest. Nothing seemed to be of interest. Nothing seemed to be real. She looked at Ron's back: It had several pieces of skin missing. She didn't know how exaxtly bad the damage was but it looked slim. The person had something in its right arm while the left held its weapon:

One of the creatures. The part between its upper midsection and the triangled head was covered by black substance. The creature tired to escape and slashed wildly at the person with all its limbs. In the first moment Kim had thought it would be the criminal in his black suit. The one he had got after the school. But that couldn't be. She had seen how the GI's bullets had bounced off the armor just as Shego's punches.

But the slashes went _through _the person. Its red eyes blazed slightly more intense as the creature tried to struggle free. She quickly took Ron's pants off and struggled to not think of naughty things. And to not look back at the person but concentrate on the task at hand. She pulled the pants over his back and took him in her arms. Slowly she stood up and carried Ron away from the person.

Her left arm was under his knees while the right held his lower chest and pressed it against her own. His head rested on her shoulder and felt warm. She prayed it would stay that warm for long. The wind blew against the two and pressed them towards the person. She turned her head to look.

It was still focused on the creature. Said thing tried to struggle free even harder. Everytime it slashed at the person a faint black fluid went among the claws as they left the body and slowly vanished after that. It made a loud shreek and the heads shape, among the blazing eyes, turned back to her. Suddenly the creatures head jerked aside and stopped moving. Its body lost all activity and loosily hung down from the black arm. They didn't fumble around from their own movements energy like they should. Instead they just stopped and hung down like as if gravity would have the tenfold pull. It all had just stopped in less than the blink of an eye.

A marionette. It reminded Kim of a marionette whose player suddenly put the straws hard and violently stopped them in their tracks. Then the arm went back to the weapon and the whole figure started walking towards them. Kim couldn't make out any sounds or footprints. Not even when it should it step into the snow. Instead it _moved _over or through the snow without denting, bending or squishing it.

"The auctaeus fillicus eats boh his prey and competitors. It lets no one get its food and nothing undone to get it."

One of Barkins boring biology movies came back into her mind. Bonnie had asked:

"Competitors for what?"

And Barkin had answered:

"Food, Rockwaller. Food."

Kim didn't understand why she suddenly remembered that stupid moment. She ran, together with Ron in her arms, away.


	35. Verdun, Somme, Middleton

Hello people. Ceartainly the longest chapter yet. Don't make war people, it sucks the root. If you don't believe me look at pictures from Verdun and Somme. Just google it and you'll surely understand what this chap is trying to say.

Drakken kept looking at the sleeping beauty before him. Mostly at her lips. Just the ones that had touched his own. He bit his lower lip at the thought. He had, somehow, kissed Shego. The feeling had been very exciting, reviving and he still shivered everytime he thought about what Shego would do to him if she knew. Drakken tried to look away but failed. Everytime he tried to catch the landscape with his eyes they moved back to her lips.

He mused about how delicate they had tasted, how warm they had been and how neatly they had closed around his own. He knew she had been unconscious but it fazed him how her lips had reacted. Drakken felt like she had done all the work for him. He quickly shook his head. He moved so fast that he almost fell to the car's ground.

Henry turned around for a quick look and Drakken gave him a thumbs-up. He knew almost nothing about his driver. But he knew that it was still not sure if Henry's eye would be healed. Or if it could heal at all. And Drakken knew that Henry had good reason to hate Shego. It had been her fault. Drakken gave the sleeping fury another look.

She was like a sleeping angel. He had always liked the black hair and in that moment it was not different. It was spread out and made a small pillow for her head. Her mouth was covered with a transparent small breathing mask that allowed perfect view on mouth and lips. Her head moved a bit and the lips parted minimally. They didn't close again, instead they kept standing where they were. It made her look even more desirable than she already was.

Drakken didn't allow himself to think that way, feel the fellings he had and follow his urge. The urge to desire, to want and to wish. Shego was very beautyfull, and her fighting skills together with her temper made her even more desirable. He knew his female assistant had a soft side, just as he had. She was just too afraid to show it to anyone. Too afraid to trust anyone. That was the reason she was sarcastic and rejected any positve feelings from others: She didn't want anyone close to her.

But what if she DID want someone to be close? And what if she was just afraid of being hurt when she let someone into her circle of trust? Drakken had seen her emotional a few times. He knew she locked her feelings and wishes away deeply inside her. And he knew she did it from the knowledge they never got fullfilled.

He wondered if he could fullfill those wishes and satisfy the needs. He knew he could make her happy. It was obvious that Shego was just sad of being disappointed. At least it was obvious to him who had spent years with her.

The hovercar stopped infront of an old lonely warehouse. Its old walls were dark blue just as the roof which held huge layers of snow. Small windows allowed light to enter the old building's upper floor. A wave of nostalgic feelings came over him. Just this had been his very first lair. He jumped off the car and looked at the old door. His hand turned around the knob and it kreeked just as he had expected.

He got back to the car and looked at Shego. Her chest slowly rose again and again. Everytime it did a soft and faint snore came when fresh air entered her lungs. It sounded harmless and sweet. He knew she would be asleep for a time and couldn't walk. Her leg would spoil any attempt of walking even in awake status.

"You should take off the blood-connection." Henry spoke. Drakken looked at his arm and withdrew the thing. After that he quickly pressed upon the small injury and let the rest of the blood flow into his assistant. He touched her bare arm and put the straw away. The cold wind blew and he shivered. Then an idea crossed his mind: Drakken took his labcoat off and put it over Shego like a blanket.

He mentally slapped himself for being stupid again. It had been a miracle that the straw hadn't broken intwo when he had jumped off.

After that his arms went underneath her knees and chest and he pulled her up. She still sat on the ground so he used his free arm to wrap the coat around her. He shivered heavily as the wind blew: He wore nothing but his jeans and a white muscleshirt. Nothing but her head and hands remained uncovered. He put her arms around his neck and the breathing mask off. Her head rested on his shoulder.

Then he got the idea that the old lair might not have anymore food in stock. But the hovercar had some food. In a small crate there was a few supplies and food.

"Get that box over there into the house!" He demanded while loosily pointing at the box with a leg. Henry gave him an arched brow and Drakken started to rant:

"I am the great Doctor-" He was quickly cut off by Henry taking the box and looking at him expectingly.

"Pull that lever! It will lower the car enough." Drakken ordered. Henry nodded and moved his arm. Drakken stood up with Shego in his arms and waited until the car was only a few inches above ground. His arms weren't used to the stress of holding a human body. They slowly sank but he hieved them up again. Together with the human cargo he walked towards the door and turned around.

Henry ran towards the door, opened it, put the box somewhere and closed the door again. After that the man ran back to the car and jumped into it. Drakken grumbled at the closed door and his temporary assistants incompetence. He turned around.

"I want that car back in one piece and without... oh."

Henry had already flown away. It was him and the injured woman. No one else. The wind howled and threw snow at him like as if it wanted to mock him. He shivered and pulled Shego closer while walking towards the door.

He rested against the wall and used his barely free arm to open the door. It kreeked and slowly opened. He had to caugh from all the dust that flew around. After that he slowly moved in and was carefull not to wake or hurt Sheego by making too many vibrations. Again his arms started to feel like lead but he made it to resist.

As he moved through the dark room memorys came back: How he had unpacked his things in this lair for the first time, how he had helped Shego to furniture her new room, how they had their first fight and how they had ignored each other for a whole week. He had, of course, been the one to give in.

Shego mourned slightly and her head moved a bit. Drakken pulled his arms high again and pulled her a bit closer. She rested her head on his shoulder what made him smile a bit. He looked around and found what he searched: A hidden door, barely seeable through the dust that lay around and on the walls. He pressed a button and entered a passcode to enter. He entered a small old elevator and pressed the up-switch.

He had bought the lair from some guy named Vinnie who got blown up in an oversized baseball-superhero-boy costume in an old, spooky and abandoned tv show's themepark. After some ex-cop rampaged the whole place in a gangwar. Howeveer since it had been a crimescene and he hadn't been a known villain with a criminal record it had been dirtcheap.

Shego mumbled something and he pulled her a bit closer. Both because of his arms had almost given out again and because she seemed to want to. After that he looked around: The whole place was just a little bit dusty for over six years of abandonship and was in good shape. He was especially proud of the old chimney in the livingroom and the huge tv that hung above it.

The elevators old metallic doors opened. In fact they were nothing but two straws of metal. He stepped into the room and moved towards the couch that stood a few feet infront of the chimney. He carefully and slowly dropped Shego on it and went into the bedroom. He found the blanket and dusted it off.

The dust flew again and he coughed wildly. Then something made a dropping noise. He took it up: It was a book with the words "My Diary" on the top. He thought very hard and struggled to remember but he couldn't find memories of him writing into a diary. Curiosity packed him and he opened the books first page. After doing so he whispered while reading the words:

"First day, met that guy named Drakken. Weirdo. At least he promises good pay. We'll see.

Second day: Nothing especial. the blue guy kept 'ranting' about how he'd take revenge on his old friends 'n stuff. Had a bad night.

Sixth day: He's a dork. Even though he cooks good. I've had nothing to do so I listened to him phoning his mom: What a whimp. Didn't sleep well."

"WHAT!" Drakken yelled and quickly covered his mouth. He intently listened but nothing came. He relaxed: Shego hadn't woke up. He skipped a few pages and read again:

"Second month, day two: The blue man tried a socalled 'deathray'. It didn't work and even if: A yellow ball with grandma's speed? Why doesn't he just buy a stupid gun? Felt pretty tired after waking up that morning.

"2 mo, d 3: 'whaw whaw whaw villains honor and tradition whaw whaw BLAH. What a CRAP. No wonder he failed to rob that electronic store over the street. I had to save his sorry ass. He seemed to be pretty sad 'bout it. Just like EVERY stupid man on this planet. But then he came up, gave me my favourite meal and say thank you! Duh... this is getting way too personall... Slept a bit better later.

2 mo d 4: Found the blue dork standing infront of the fridge mumbling something. Took somethin' to eat and then suddenly the whole thing shot a yellow ball at me! He grabbed my tigh and stomach and pulled me away from it. It hit the chimney and boy was that hot. Even through the distance I felt the immense heat coming over. Then I realised it was his hands...

2 mo d 5: OKAY fine! It did feel a bit of nice that day ago. I still remember how quickly he had let me free again talking about 'not violating my privacy' and stuff. Well at least he knows how to treat me right. Or at least how to mask him touching me as some sort of accident... But he's not smart enough for that."

"Am I just 'the blue dork' for her?" He mumbled angrily and skipped a lot of pages.

"year 2m3dhellknowswhat: Oh god oh god oh god ... I let him in that himalaya-lair! He's SO gonna kill me... Oh god he's gotta hate me for yelling at him and even letting him freeze to death out there! Oh god please make him pull through!

y2- " Drakken scowled. He noticed that the handwriting got a lot worse and that few small dark spots stood on the paper.

"I really should have fixed the roof back than..." He could only read a few words and those didn't make much sense.

"m... who cares? Drakken's barely alive... had to call his mom 'n tell her he'd be fine but busy... oh god this is so bad... been in the sickbay and some henchdude called me murderer... I hope he's not right with that... couldn't sleep the whole night...

m blah d blub: I still remember the day he 'n me had stood infront of the chimney: His hands had been so warm and gentle... something sparked in his eyes... I can't sleep anymore... henchmen hate me but who blames them? IT'S MY FAULT!

m... found him barely conscious... told him I'd be sorry and that I didn't hate him... "

"Shego's been sorry?" Drakken was confused. "And what about her sleep? Maybe I should buy some medicine for her." He skipped again. The handwriting was strangely harmonic and nice. Also everything had its order eycept for the missing dates.

"HuuuuuuuuUh! I'm having a date with him!" He looked at that confused and was about to skip again when he noticed something.

"I slept so well that night: I dreamt of us standing infront of the chimney again, that time he didn't tense up and turn away. And I didn't look at him like at a strange weirdo. His eyes reflected the chimney's fire, or was it his own? He slowly moved a hand from my tigh and into my hair and I got warm all over my body. Then he slowly moves my head closer, I close my eyes and... I wake up. URGHHH!

y5 m8 d4: I woke up whirled into my blanket and pillow in... naughty ways. I dreamt of him again. I know was just that chip... or was it? I went to that date with him and we ate ice together, went to the fair and actually made fotos."

Drakken spotted the photos of him and Shego all very carefully and neatly glued into the page. His eyes caught one especiall photo: Their heads can't be seen but Shego threw herself at him in an, even to him, obvous way. He couldn't remember that moment. He couldn't remember many moments with Shego in the six years. Mostly when she hit him or the princess hit him.

"I really tried! I can't believe I really tried to kiss him! But I was too... passionatte..."

Drakken bit his lower lip and swallowed hard: Could it be they had already kissed and he simply didn't remember?

"My body threw his into the corner and his head bumped into its wall... poor Drakkie... I think I'll... nurse... him a bit tomorrow..."

Drakken relaxed very much. They hadn't kissed without him remembering it. They had kissed without HER remembering it just a few minutes ago. Then his brows furrowed and he thought about what exactly Shego meant with 'nursing' him 'a bit'. He wasn't THAT stupid but Shego was a complicated woman. It could mean she just wanted to make him a plaster, or to be a little bit nicer than normal, or maybe-

He quickly stopped at that point. It sounded interesting at least to think she could have actually gone so far if the buffoon hadn't found the remote and got what it really did. His eyes slowly moved across the wall as pictures formed: Shego lying on top of him under a blanket, Shego lying alone under a blanket and Shego sit-standing on him with his hands on her hips-

He stopped. It was very entertaining to think that way but he didn't want to allow himself to. Well he wanted to allow himself but knew Shego wouldn't allow himself to. Or would she? He couldn't decide and before his mental defences totally crumbled under the weight of Shego's delicate forms he got his anchor: His mother.

She had always told him one thing: "Always respect a woman's privacy, Drewbie! Don't even think of her if you know she doesn't think of you that way!"

But Drakken never found out HOW anyone of two should start to think if the other wasn't thinking and wasn't allowed think until he did. It remained a mystery to him.

"Wait mother never told me women weren't allowed to think about me when I wasn't thinking about them... Maybe she wanted me to wait until some lady thinks of me first?" He grumbled over the mystery of female minds until he diecid to turn the page. The handwriting got very big and clear.

"If I get this DORK he'll pay so hard! Drakken and DORK. D n' D. DOCTOR D. How about Doctor Dork? Would make much sense. Although I really doubt he has a doctor's title. Bet he just wants to get women with the 'doctor'. I'll SO beat him to rubber...

next day: He came up to me with the ultrahard door between us. Nice idea. It took me some time to get through. He told me it'd been that chip and that it'd be okay to hate him n' stuff since he hadn't even noticed and that he had broke the chip by trying to control little princess. Then he told me I could leave if I want. But I saw it was a lie- he wouldn't last one day without me! HAH!

next-next day: Slept HORRIBLE. Maybe I souldn't be so bad to him anymore: It really wasn't his fault. And maybe I should thank him for... nahhh! That was standart. But I just don't know how to apologize to him though. He REALLY got a scar from he in his belly. I was so angry it's a miracle I didn't slice his guts... duh that had been horrible! I mean... having... killed him...

over next next-next day: Bought some of his stupid cartoon dvd's. I really gotta thank him though... He didn't fire after that himalaya-thing and he didn't... take advantage of me. I mean I know less men who would have done like he did than I have family! I wonder if it was just his stupor or real character-

4-next day: Kinda tried to apologize but failed. He really looked irritated. He does look a bit... sweet when he's ranting. I wonder if he still thinks I'd not listen to his rantings. It's just fun to see him angry and not bossing me around. I would like to do more fun things like that waterfight. And he even remembered my birthday a few months ago. Even though I hadn't told him about it! And me dork screamed at him. I wonder if he finds out one day that I use his teleport-thingy to get back to this place so often. He still hasn't got a clue WHY I'm so long in my room everytime. I've got everything I want here- peace, my favourite blanket, a glass of Jack Daniels and a nice fire-

I wonder if Drakken does massages... I'd maybe like that- for as long as he knows how far I allow him to go though."

Drakken slowly closed the book. He knew a lot more about her. If she knew she'd hate him. He took the blanket and moved into the livingroom. After setting the fire on and putting the blanket over the sleeping Shego he moved to the Elevator: There had food to be taken care of. The door opened and a darkness he hadn't believed his old lair could possess surrounded him. Little did he know that there were other people surrounded by another form of darkness at the same moment...

---

FHHHHHEEEEEEUUUW- Another shockwave rummed above the figures head and body, ready to smash it, pump it full with the splinters and shrapnell it carried as payload. Another series off dull thuds sounded and it hieved its aching body up to run again. It made a few huge steps and threw its body down again. FWuuu-dummm- A huge cluster of dirty muddy earth got thrown up and landed on its back like a swift shower of hard water.

FWEEuu-THummm Fwe- The figure stood up from the flat ground and crawled onwards to the saving crater's rimm. It got inside just in time to receive the earths saving embrace. -TfUMMM The impact had lain right where it had lain before. The shape slid into the deep hole: The mud delivered no solid grip. But it didn't slide down completely and instead crawled among gravity's pull and made a small jump. It landed on the opposite part of the crater instead of the middle. The figure had reasons for it.

The hole had swallowed the shape willingly, just as the past. But the past always came back while holes weren't so cruel. FWEEEEEU-FWUmmm and then the howling, angry and hatefilled whistles came too close after each other and build multiple layers of sound. It pressed itself prone into the protective earth, its cold already ate into the body. The person just wanted to stay and keep the wonderfully safe and protective earth in its arms.

But the person wasn't allowed too. It didn't allow itself to. DUmmm-FUmmm- Wave after wave of shock and pressure hammered through earth, air and the person. Every single compression of air rocked through the shapes body. The heart hammered towards the earth: Just keep lying would _feel_ good. But feelings were a lie.

Feelings only got people killed.

The body wanted to stay but the person gripped the craters rimm and pulled itself up again. The thrust, comparable to a sprint-runner's speedstart, brought it enough distance to get a few steps done without stepping. Its few steps were accompanied by another series of dull plops as the launchers fired again. But they weren't all the plops. Something was wrong and the person knew what: It jumped sideways and bullets impacted the ground where its body could have lain, where it could have stood and where it could have ran towards.

So they impacted everywhere they had expected the shape to be, but it knew the tricks.

Fwwwww- the shells were still a bit away, not further than a heartbeat but still far enough. The crawled over the ground, pushed the legs faster than most humans would over the muddy earth which willingly gave in and. It moved the arms faster than most humans would. Because it knew how to move. The person knew not only that. It got over the rimm and into the hole again. Instead of moving further into it the lonely shape put itself flat, headfirst towards the black hole inside the center.

It looked like a pit of darkness. DUMMM DWummm FWUMMM- It got up again and moved in a ducked run since it knew they'd expect the body to run. Loudly the bullets whistled by where normal people had kept their torsos. But the person didn't: It knew the game and the rules: There weren't any. DWUMMMMmmmm...

Each and every one of the shells came closer to the ground to do their task: Impact and explode. That they easily killed people, ripped apart families, ended long rows of ancestors was just an accepted and tolerated sideeffect. The figure knew it'd be too late so it got up again and ran the left distance only to jump like a swimmer from his starting block. It flew with almost zero resistance of air and oxygen into a new but still familiar _black_ pit of comfort in a world of _white_ death.

---

Drakken felt like being watched. Something grumbled in his stomach. Against his inner will, pride and villainy he just turned around and ran the two steps towards the elevator. And instead of letting the door close itself automaticly after the button was pressed he smashed it close. It proved to be the right thing as strong blows hammered against the metallic hinderence. His eyes widened but the stomach ordered him to don't.

He didn't panic, instead he pressed the up button and gripped at the metal. His stomach made him stop that right in time as something went through the metal where his hand had been upon. It seemed to be nothing, not even there but still powerfull to grip his arm and smash it into the hole. He knew the metal wouldn't give in so he would lose his arm. Finally the elevator started up and he got an idea: He pressed a certain button.

The blows continued just as the elevators silent humming as it sped up. A huge metallic clank made him shiver and then came what he had expected: The sentrygun opened fire. It wasn't a deathbeam, it had already been installed when he had bought the 'lair'. Its firing suddenly stopped and he listened intently: It was the small electric engine that moved the gun back to its old position.

He got back into the livingroom and shoved a huge closet infront of the elevators 'door'. Then he got a few bandages and medicine from the bathroom and put it on the tabe that stood beside the couch. After that he went towards the chimney. The fire calmed him and gave him the feeling of safety and comfort.

"Uuuu... Daddy... no..." He heard Shego's voice behind himself. It was barely recognisable through the flames cracking.

He sat down infront of the couch and looked at Shego. Her lips suddenly lost all their beauty as he saw them shiver. He slightly shook his assistant and whispered into her ear:

"Shhhh... No one hurts you Shego." It seemed to calm her so he put his arms around her injured leg. He moved the limp to a slight stance and ran into the bedroom. With two pillows he ran into his own room and got the two others. After that he ran back to her and put pillows under her injured leg's upper- and lowerleg. Then her upper body lay upon a pillow.

It had been difficult to get the pillow underneath her butt without touching it. Shego began to whimper something inaudible. His face immediatly showed worry as he shook her carefully. A rather loud single whimpering noise came and her eyes shot open. Shego made another whimpering sound as she sunk into the couch and moved her head far away from his.

"It's me Shego. The great Doctor Drakken! I'll... protect you from your father!" The gentleness of his voice surprised Drakken. Shego kept looking at him frightingly. He wanted to carefully pet her but knew it would only frighten her more. Any sort of touch created fear in someone who had just went through a nightmare. He had to give her time to reorient.

"You're safe here! It's the first lair we had. Remember the time I... uuu...saved you from the fridge?" Any nice memory was helpfull to reestablish someones wellbeing. Her eyes quickly darted around and slowed until they stopped on him. The brows furrowed in faint confusion.

"I'm Drakken." He smiled at her. She thought for a moment and then slowly and quietly spoke:

"D-Drakken? What... Why am I here?"

"You're injured and it's safe here."

"Why?"-Was just the question that Drakken didn't want to answer so he just restated the facts:

"You have an injured leg and shouler. Your chest is injured too. Just lay still I took care of everything for you."

She faintly nodded and cuddled a bit deeper into the blanket and coat. He stayed by her side.

"Will you... I mean..." Shego was obviously very uneasy on that question: "Keep me from falling asleep again?"

Drakken knew that rejecting any offer from a person in Shego's position was very destructive so he just nodded.

"Promise!" It didn't sound like her usual demanding voice. It sounded more like a defiant child.

"I promise to stay so you don't fall asleep." She eased and something softened in her eyes: Something went normal again.

---

It impacted the earth hardly: Jumping far into a deeper crater and landing on the blank stomach was painfull. The poor person fought the sting in its lungs and the pain that came in regular rythms among the heavily pressing heartbeat. The entire stomach ached from the about double as normally high gravity's push. And because the earth had been hard.

The entire body was pressed flat against the earthand teeth were gritted hard while the eyes were closed even harder. A heart hammered and a chest raised to press towards the cold earth underneath. The shape would never have believed that a single hole of dirty, cold, mudbrown and squashy, smooth and tender earth could be all iz wanted. FWSCHUU-TWZUMM

Again dirty earth flew over and onto it, giving the 'clothes' one more fine matt brown color and layer. It didn't want to leave the sheltering, protecting, comforting and healthy embrace of what lay underneath. The heart didn't want to leave, it wanted to stay there for long. The person knew that it would lie in just the same earth when it all was over. When it all ended, one way or another. Cold but sheltering earth.

"I'll come back earth. I promise."

It felt the ground agreeing and that somehow gave the phantom comfort. Within an artilleryraid. But a heart didn't count, neither a mind. Both emotions and thought were useless in the persons situation.

The stomach took over. Only very few people on the planet were able to actively let their stomach take over command. Most of them were cripples, veterans or rotting in mother earth. The stomach hieved it up. Science had found out that human stomachs had cells similar to the ones in human's brain. Like as if mankind had NEVER known that before.

The person raised its body once again for a push forward. TWUMMM Everything was replaced by a highpitched whistle but it didn't matter. The phantom could live without ears if necessary. It had been a direct shot, one of the mean ratsh-bumm's: One heard the firing sound after the impact. Way too late.

The shape knew the tricks: One or more would try to keep it pinned, one would fire directly and two or more indirect. FHupblubflupblpbluflupriff a new swarm of rounds made these sounds as they raced past the body. It had known where they would fly by and that they had expected it to jump sideways. They adapted: Time ran out for the shape. It landed in another crater.

To its surprise the shape wasn't alone.

---

"Should I cook something? Ok?" Drakken asked. There had to be food somewhere. The crate was out of reach, there could be more somethings waiting for him to feel safe enough. To feel like there had been only one of the somethings. Shego slowly nodded. Drakken stood up and walked into the citchen which was no seperate room. Instead it was a corner with a few barseats behind a wall that led into the bedroom.

The wall had a huge opening like a window without glass so people could see into the kitchen easily. And get their food from it quickly. Shego had to live in that lair instead of her own room at least sometimes so ther had to be food in the fridge. The fridge didn't offer much food but eggs, a bit of toast and ham.

The ham was in small and thin layers. He got an idea: First came the toast, then ham and the eggs ontop. He smiled at his ingenious idea and put everything beside the cooking place. Drakken turned it on and opened the eggs to take them into the pan. They would need a few minutes. He put toast into the toaster and the ham aside. After that he returned to Shego.

She lay still on her little fluffy pillowcastle.

"How do you feel?" He asked.

"Not good... I don't feel much at all." Drakken sensed it would be the painkillers.

"Do you want to talk about your father? You mumbled something about him." Shego tried to hide her surprise and looked away.

"No... Maybe you should talk about yours?"

He had expected her to lit her hands and threaten him as the typical defensive reaction but nothing like that came. Shego started to pull her legs back to make him space but he took and held them gently. Then he took place before her again instead of beside her.

"You know... my dad and me we... ummm." He thought for a moment and then went on: "I... don't know him. He died when I was five. The only thing I know is that he disappeared in the arctis. I have a few pictures of him just as my mom has. But I never started to know him because he was rarely at home. My mom was really sad."

Shego's brows furrowed and she tilted her head lightly.

"Sometimes I heard her cry in the night when she thought I'd be asleep. I just listened for a few times until I just got up and went into her room. Then I just quietly sneaked into the bed and hugged her closely. She suddenly noticed me and couldn't say anything. I hugged her and then we cried pretty much. When she was finished she looked into my eyes and said: "I miss him too." That happened very night..."

A long pause followed.

"After some time it didn't happen so often anymore. When I'm at home she sometimes looks at me just like she did that night. It was like she wouldn't be SO sad about it when I was around... But it's not like I'm some sort of replacement for dad. Sometimes she even smiles, but only when I'm around her. I mean: Truly smiling, not just her strange sort of happyness. That's just a fassade. It kinda helped her to forget a bit of the pain but it's still just a fassade."

Shego looked at him intently. His face had taken a sad expression and his eyes still reflected the burning fire. But it didn't shine as much as when he had looked at her.

"That whole thing began when I was five... It started to happen less often when I got ten. Nowadays its pretty rare... The last time was three weeks ago..."

His face was nothing but a mask of sorrow. But faintly, invisible to purely the eye, was a very distant bit of relief.

"Sorry for all the momma's boy jokes." Drakken knew it was the first time Shego truly appologized to him.

"I wouldn't have said them if I had known it would hurt you so much." Drakken made a gestue of throwing something away and hid his face.

"Now you know. That's gotta be enough."

"No it's not enough! You should have-"

"Told you? So that you could hurt me even more? I kinda numbed off from all the 'jokes' I already had in school. 'Who's yo' daddy?' 'Wanna cry with momma?' And you only differ between 'hurt a bit' and 'hurt a lot'. You would just have kept hurting me so much I wouldn't snap or fight back." He looked her straight into the eyes and spoke:

"Shego you're just the same kind as all the bullies. You hurt because you think you'd be hurt yourself if not."

Shego looked shocked. It was like he had smashed a fist into her. It wasn't the words but the stern look he gave her that hurt.

"I... no! I mean yes just not... I...-"

"had my reasons? What reasons can excuse such behaviour? I say: None. You could have told me about your problems. And do you really think that these little words of 'excuse' would just wash away all the pain you caused?" Shego looked away in defeat.

"Words can only hurt. They flew away like the wind but their pain remaines, Shego. Actions show you care for someone, not words."

---

Everything was loud. It had all happened so fast. Crystal sat in the dirty hole while again and again the explosions came. Sometimes she could see the dirt that flew up into the sky, stopped in meterhigh pillars and then came down on everyone. It was always a loud bang and something went through her. It felt like she would stand beside a big soundsystem that hammered bass. All the other cheerleaders were in that hole with her.

Once more a loud bang came down. It close. Earth showered down on them again. They had been told to stay there and it was what they kept doing. After the 'shower' seized she took a look on her mates: Bonnie sat beside her and stayed still. Her arms were crossed before the chest and she kept staring into the ground opposite to her. Liz sat just a few inches furhter away and had an arm around Hanna. She poked her head up and looked around but Hanna quickly pulled her down again.

A series of loud whistles flew past the place where Liz had poked her head over the rim. Some flew by while others rammed into the holes rimm and a few entered the hole in a very low angle. They hit the opposite side of the two cheerleader's seat and threw up earth. They made really ugly loud whistles and howls as they flew closely past the girls bodies. All of them except for Bonnie ducked and moved closer to each other.

Hanna quietly whimped and covered her ears. Liz put her arm around the young woman again and whispered something into her ear. Tara lay at the rimms edge behind a huge piece of metal. She had been told how it worked and to stay behind it. Tara looked behind her and their eyes met. It somehow calmed Crystal, it felt like everything would come out nicely. Tara smiled and it eased both a bit.

Then Tara heard something. Crystal didn't know what it was but it sounded dangerous. Tara suddenly pressed herself closer into the mud and her expression changed to a fearfull face with gritted teeth. Then Hanna began to scream something:

"Make it stop! Make it STOP!"

"SHhhhh! We're safe here that's what-" Liz was quickly cut off:

"No! I wanna go home now!" Hanna stood up and ran out of the hole towards where they had come from. Crystal stood up to look after her. The entire street had holes like the one they were in already. Tara was about to stand up when another series of whistles came and many of the earththrowing fountains came up along the street. One was close to her right and she fell to the left side. She began to scream weakly.

Many of the other whistles sped over them and Tara pushed Crystal's head down. A few of the noises flew past where her head had been and landed in the earth behind her. They formed small holes and little stones, among of very small chunks of earth, rolled down into the holes deepest point and center. They had been told to not go close to the center but Crystal didn't know why.

A few seconds passed and no one moved. Another wave of explosions came and Hanna began to scream for Help. Liz stood up and Tara did the same. She had been whispered something and she was surely about to do what she's been told. Liz gripped the holes rimm and wanted to run to Hanna. But Tara gripped her tigh and stomach and tried to hold her back. Liz tried to struggle free but failed.

"Remember: Don't leave the hole! That's what we've been told!" Tara brought out as she pulled stronger.

"But Hanna-"

"We can't do anything now! Just stay calm and sit there!" Tara finally made it to pull Liz back undearneath the surface and into the hole. They both rolled down and Tara made it to grip an old root while Liz kept on rolling. Crystal packed her arm and made her stop before entirely landing in the holes center which was pitchblack. The rest of the hole was loose, cold, slippy and brown earth. Liz slowly came up again.

Hanna screamed for help again but a wave of explosions made her voice drown in the louder noises. Liz started to scratch her legs like crazy and Tara put off her top. She started to move it over Liz's legs many times while everyone heard Hanna's shouts for help. Tara stopped and put her cheerleading top back on. Liz scratched her leg one more time and then stopped. Everyone stopped and looked bewildered at the Tara except for Bonnie.

"Ummm Gas! That's what -" Tara started but sensed that it was futile to say more. They had all been told a few things but most of the girls had forgotten them already. Again the low whistles sped over them and Crystal heard steps between them. Then a figure slid into the hole and barely stopped sliding before the center. It was covered in wet and dirty brown mud all over the body and looked at them. The bright white of its eyes differed much in comparison to all the other matt colors it 'wore'.

It seemed to count them with lightning speed and then ran towards the rimm opposite to the one it had come from. Tara pointed towards the direction where Hanna lay. The person pushed itself over the rimm. Hanna once again called for help. But her calls had become a quiet whimping and sobbing. The girls knew she cried: They were all shortly before doing so.

"Stay here, I'm back soon! NEVER leave and NEVER look!" It said and ran out of view. Another bunch of explosions sounded but they didn't went through Crystal as strong as they had done before. She stood up just as all the other girls. Except for Bonnie who still sat still. Crystal saw the figure run in a strangely bowed way towards one of the holes and jumped into it before another series of explosions rocked the earth.

The whistling low angeled things flew again and sped after the person as it ran towards another hole. Crystal was about to shout at it to run faster when Tara put a hand on her shoulder. Again their eyes met and she lost the will to shout. The figure emerged from its hole again and finally reached Hanna. The whistles flew past it, over it and with its run but didn't hit. Smaller fountains of earth came close to wherever its feet touched ground.

---

Drakken kept watching the eggs until they got ready. He combined them with the ham and toast and cut them into small pieces. After that he came back to Shego and held the plate towards her together with a fork. he waited for a few moments and then cleared his throat loudly. Shego seemed to awake from a trance and was about to unwind both of her arms when he motioned her not to. Drakken took the blanket away from her chest and slowly opened the coat with one hand.

Shego took a sharp breath in and then looked at him. Drakken sensed her unease but couldn't help it: She had to eat something even if it wasn't her diet-food or salad. She slowly moved her arms but stopped suddenly. One of the arms lowered slowly while the other took the fork. She gave him a glare at his worried look.

"I'm sorry I hurt you Shego but... " He tilted his head aside and thought for a moment. "we should have had that talk long ago. And we're still not finished."

Shego had a piece off egg, ham and toast on her fork and was about to put it into her mouth. She stopped and looked at him frightingly.

"But your part can wait a bit."

She looked at the piece of food and was about to protest when Drakken gave her a mean stern look. Normally Shego would just have beaten or otherwise defeated him but that wasn't a normal moment. Shego was at the weak end. And she knew that very well. Her eyes met his and they stayed like that for a few moments. Then she quickly looked away and returned the gaze. Drakken's look hadn't softened just a bit.

Shego grumbled and started chewing. After a second she stopped and looked and looked at him with wide eyes. He grinned as she took another piece and ate it. Shego started to eat it all away very quickly.

"Hah! I knew you like it!" Than his expression changed to a questioning one and he asked: "Do you think taking over the world's egg production and mixing them with mindcontrolling ingredients might work?"

Shego nodded very quickly without stopping to eat. It took her a few more minutes to finish and he put the plate away. Than he looked at the kitchen closely: It was in a very bad order and everything barely made sense. And that hadn't been his fault. He wondered if Shego would want him to teach her about kitchen work and cooking.

Her eyes closed and she leant into the couch. Drakken shook her and she looked surprised.

"You were about to fall asleep again..."

A long pause followed. He didn't know what to do or say after the cooking and bandaging was finished. Shego just lay there and kept looking at him.

Shego didn't get why Drakken was so nice to her. She just hoped he didn't know abou her nightmares. That would be the last thing she'd want him to: Know too much about her. She cuddled a bit deeper into the coat. It smelled nicely like Drakken. Normally he didn't smell nice but it must have been her own smell in his coat that mixed them to something nice. She took a little breath and looked at him.

It wasn't like Drakken would be especially hot or beautifull: She simply hadn't seen him in the muscleshirt before. Drakken wasn't the best example of a man but he did look nice. Shego did what she always did when someone appeared new: She analyzed who she saw. It just took a little bit longer that time. Something made her wonder: Had Drakken's entire skin that strange but nice blue?

Shego thought about how she got to her hideout. Had he found out? She didn't know. What surprised her was that she didn't feel mch of the injuries she had. When she just quietly lay there it seemed like she wouldn't be injured at all. But everytime she moved an injured muscle it hurt like hell.

"Do you want to take a shower? Or change clothes?" Drakken's voice had returned to normal again. One thing bothered her: The small point on his arm. A shower would be nice but how shower or bath with such injuries?

"No. Did you give yourself a shot?" She pointed at his arm. He looked at it.

"No. I actually... " He took a long breath and spat it out: "gave you some of my blood through a needlelike connection. Don't worry 'cause of the rhesus thing. So no blood poisoning and...stuff."

No one spoke for a moment and one of the huge wood blocks broke intwo. It send sparks flying everywhere in the chimney and illuminated the room a bit more. In fact, it was the only source of light and warmth. Shego snuggled a bit deeper into her coat and blanket. Drakken put his bodys weight from one foot to the other. He started to shiver a bit. He seemed to be pretty uneasy about something and eager to ask a question about it.

"Shego... did your father... rape you as a child?" His voice was forcefully clear and he fought to say the meaningfilled words. A log pause followed as Shego thought over what to say. She lay comfortly on pillows and seemed to enjoy it. But simply not at that moment.

"No he had sometimes hit me. Mostly when he had been drunk." It was difficult to say it for her. It was the first time she opened to someone. No reply came for a long time. She like the silence even though it seperated both of them from each other. Shego wanted Drakken to sit beside her and tried to move her leg. A heavy stinging made her stop with it and she yelled quietly.

Would she ever be able to fight again? Would the lost muscle regrow? Would she become nothing but a limping and useless cripple? A liability to everyone and especially to Drakken? Shego doubted that he would keep her close when she was useless. She doubted he would keep trying to take over the world. At least he'd stop trying with her as fighter...

Drakken quickly held her leg in the air without pressing on the injured muscle. Then he slowly moved it a bit higher together with the other leg and sat down. The muscle kept hurting heavily but the pain didn't increase at least. He carefully put both legs down on his lap with the injured one's knee slightly angled upwards. She wondered what he would do when he put the blanket and coat away from her crippled leg.

Would he care for her? She doubted it since her only usefull feature was to fight for him and save him. He had always been the weak one, HE had always been the one in need for help. Could it be that he would keep saving her? Or would she end in a gossip with a cheap bottle of whiskey and two bums who greedily kept waiting for to fall asleep? So she couldn't defend herself against their naughty desires? All these questions roamed in her head.

Everything was kinda bad. The people had used her and only tolerated her when she had been usefull. Would Drakken be the same? She remembered all the sweet nice moments they had. The waterfight, their unintended hug with the lightning and their date during the chip's active time. That made her think even further: Would Drakken really reject her after all they've gone through? She hoped not.

Suddenly her eyes went wide and she snapped back to reality: Something happened to her leg. It felt warm. She looked and saw Drakken moving over her injury with his fingers. It didn't hurt but felt a bit warm. Then he took the old bandage off very carefully. She couldn't believe that the wet and crimson piece of cotton with a few white stains could be her bandage. And she couldn't believe how she could have lost so much blood without dying.

She bent forward and the heavy sting came to her shoulder: It burnt through her shoulder with hunger and greed.

"Shego!" Drakken quickly put a hand to his shoulder and gently pressed her down again. The pain slowly went back to the subtle light sting but his warm had remained. His face was full of concern. And it was just a very few inches away from hers. It stayed that way for a rather long time. She wanted to knw it very exactly, no matter of how much space she opened for him to attack. No matter how of what she thought to be weakness she showed:

But before she could say anything Drakken started speaking:

"You'll be fine Shego really! Even if we've got to cancel world qonquest for a few weeks or even months that's no problem. I mean I'm kinda blown off without you..."

"So you won't... fire me?"

"I wouldn't fire even a henchman!" He said pretty determinated and then worriedly: "Do you know how much they cost nowadays?"

She looked away. Money. So everything that counted was her value in money.

"And It's my fault you're injured Shego..." He looked sad at saying that. Her mind whirled.

Did he care? Was he just unable to express it otherwise than by hiding behind money and small reasons? Could it be he cared about her?

"I mean even if it wouldn't be I'd not abandon you." Then he boasted his chest: "I am a villain of first class Shego and even I have ceartain ehtics! And leaving the people you order around behind like useless tools isn't what I do." Then he mumbled: "At least not with you..."

"What do you mean?" Her mood rose. It seemed to be at least important to him, maybe even more.

He rolled his eyes but not in a way of sarcasm. "Uhhhh... I mean you're kind of my personal assistant and so... you're experienced and... I mean six years of such shouldn't be thrown away..."

Working experience? Cash value? She didn't know. IF Drakken cared for her he knew how to talk around it.

"And... ummm we've been through much so..."

"So?" Shego bit her lower lip what she rarely did. It was, to say it clearly, a situation that resembled nothing that had been before.

"So we are kinda... uhh... close." He expected her to protest and sped up: "I mean if people work together there's always something coming up between them: Love, hatred, caring there's always something."

Shego swallowed and bit down her pride to ask:

"And what do we have?" Drakken looked into her eyes and didn't know what to say. Another huge block of lumber broke under the flames immense fire and sparks flew around. The fire intensed just as two ceartain heart's paces. They kept looking like that for at least ten seconds before he fought words out of his mouth.

"If we've got to stop being villains because you can't recover and..." It was just the thing she had feared: He was abandoning her.

"I mean we were together for long..." Tears began to collect in her heart and soul, but not in her eyes. Not yet. She tried to fight them off but failed. Tears freely flowed off her cheeks.

"So I'd like kinda... umm..." She put her free arm around his back and her hand into his hair. She'd keep him close no matter what. He didn't notice her crying quietly because he kept looking away into different directions every few seconds. Then he started again.

"I'd just take a job and we'd move to some quiet place with no police and... just keep on going. I mean I'll care for you and earn money and stuff..."

Could it realy be that he cared? Had he just pokered to see her true oppinion? Had he just played or was he really insecure?

"I mean we could just pretend to be a couple and live on like we did before... just without traveling the world and stealing and using funky gadgets and no huge lairs and stuff..."

What exactly he talked about Shego wasn't sure of. It could be interpreted as positive and negative. She had always believed that Drakken was an idiot. A nice and, somehow, caring idiot but stupid nonetheless. Not really stupid but far away from real life. He needed her to keep him on the ground.

"I know it'd be hard to find a job but as long as you don't suffer I'd be happy..."

Suddenly Drakken seemed to be a very grown-up person. Or maybe was he just the person that only came when serious matters like lost fathers and crippled assistants were to solve?

"I mean I'd never just leave you alone somewhere because I... need you Shego. I only have my mom and she's not really much company..."

Drakken suddenly blushed. "I'd... care for you and it'd be not much change to now Shego. I would like you to stay around me. That's if..."

If? What if? Could he just throw away everything they had? She knew she cared for him. It was just her strange, special and unconventional way. It was just different.

"You'd allow me to take care of and for you. I mean I'd do everything for you because you've always been loyal to me and I'll return that. If you want to. If not then... " His eyes saddened a bit, he looked away and bit his lip. "I'll just respect that. So... shortly said:

I'd love to care for you and I would never in my life just leave you." he tried to escape the difficulty: "I mean what's a villain without his trusted assistant? And I'd always trust my life to your care. I mean we can pull through everything if we just work together. And I don't want to miss you, Shego."

The tears didn't stop coming. It could all still break, fall apart, crumble. A small smile appeared on her face as he said the words she had been waiting for:

"I need you Shego. You're my... guidance. I would just have stopped after my first defeat but I thought: 'What about Shego? She's got nowhere to go to and I would just leave her down.' I thought that everytime I failed Shego. I'd just... degenarate without you, Shego."

That was all she had ever wanted: Care. Someone who cared about and for her. Someone who appreciated her being close, someone who showed her he was thankfull for her attention. Hadn't he always praised her everytime she stole him something, saved him or made him get an idea? Hadn't he thanked her for so much everytime? And hadn't he forgiven her any mistake, even the himalaya? Shego didn't want to admit it but she had missed Drakken when she had worked for Senior, son and father.

He looked at her and frowned. "Shego why are you cr-" He didn't get further because she pressed his head down and kissed him. It was an amateurs kiss, it was kinda stupid, kinda unfitting and he didn't kiss back but it was a clear sign of affection. And it was very romantic.

---

The used its bolt-action to pull the girl. It had barely made a third of the way as a series of impacts came down near them. He bent over the young female and took the blows for her. It was like fists of hatefilled air smashed on his back. The figure started pulling her further as the detonations stopped and ignored the warm feeling that spread downwards on and through his right leg. Feelings only got people killed.  
Barb wire had cut through its hands and legs, claws had scarred its entire body, tentacles had lashed at it like whips but it didn't matter:

The girl mattered. An innocent life in a time of war mattered.

It pulled her into the crater and looked at her. Nothing happened except for another volley. And again the phantom bent down over her to shelter her with its own flesh. Most of the shockwaves weren't strong because they were inside a crater. Even if it was just a small one it sheltered them from splinters, too. The shadow rested its carbine, among the bloodtipped bayonett at its front, beside its bleeding right leg.

Max sensed that the girl's heart had stopped beating.


	36. 5 minutes, 5 moments, 4 lives

"What do you mean bio-artillery?" The chief handed Richard a pair of binoculars instead of saying something.

Richard searched the oncoming stream of people until he found something strange. They were humanoid, about two meters high and thick. Their head was ratlike with many sharp teeth. Said head was at the lower right of the body, certainly where a human had his right leg's joint. Above the head was some sort of round and short barrel that was closed shut by an organic membran. No fur or hair was to be seen.

The entire left body was covered with lines of small holes. Said holes looked like a beehive's storage cells. They wereshutby the same membran and looked like openings for something rocketlike. Small short legs carried the heavy and big body over the ground. Overall the entire creature looked like some sort of strange mixed thing. He put the binoculars down and looked very confused.

"They are the bio-artillery. A few of them have already made townfall. They fire both direct and indirect with their biomortars. Their left side houses some sort of biological machinegun which shoots with poisonous stingers."

Richard looked at the man in disbelief.

"I'm not joking. All the craters around and holes in our houses are from their shots. Now please take them out."

Richard gave Goff a nod and the weapon's bipod rested on an old wall. Short burst enlightened faces and created dark shadows on them. He observed the three creatures: One of them started to yell in pain as tracers cut into it and fell to the ground. Richard lowered his right arm and Goff ceized firing.

"Left, thirty meters!"

Goff turned his body a bit to the right and fired the weapon that had turned into the opposite direction. At first nothing happened because the huge thing moved sideways but after a few bursts it started to scream very loud. After that it simply exploded in the blink of an eye and many of the undead around it fell from the huge amount of splinters. Richard's lip twitched in disgust at the sight.

"Yeah... we had to learn that the hard way, mister." The chief said after motioning two cops to come out of one building. Then he suddenly yelled "Cover!" and everyone dropped to the ground or hid behind something hard. Loud whistles came as strangely shaped bullets hit into and over the containers.

"We learned that the hard way too." He spoke but Richard didn't pay much attention. He was mesmerized by the strange creature's way of functioning. It's legs spread for better stance and its leftsided holes opened again: It fired another stream of venomous ammunition. Everyone took cover and Goff shot after the hammering stopped. The thing started to yell and its body started convulsing.

More and more blows came against its skin from the inside, like as if more and more little balls tried to escape. The skin started to become bigger and bigger: It would collaps under the huge pressure very soon. The voice, surprisingly almost human, screamed so loud that everyone on the containers covered their ears.

Its short arms sped around and hit a few of the undead that walked past. Its skin seemed to grow violently and it yelled brutally before exploding into a very huge green fireball. More than twenty undead around it died from the shockwave, splinters and flames. Richard just shook his head. If a few of those had already made it into the city chaos would start.

"Who are these people? And why do you shoot at them?"

"They are the socalled 'undead'. A sickness has made them become violent emotionless killers. Sons murder fathers, men kill their wives."

Richard didn't feel like the man before him would be a murderer, terrorist or criminal. Or a liar.

"And you fight to keep them off the city?"

The chief nodded and motioned the four new allies to follow him into one of the buildings. Richard and his two friends gave their colt pistols to the chief and two cops. One of the cops gave the ammo for his mp to the other after getting the colt. Chief motioned them to follow him until they entered a huge room in the buildings backside. They were still in the first floor.

They stood infront of a huge hole through which they saw many undead people shamble by underneath their feet. Chief was the first to open fire on them, after that the others followed. Goff knelt down and rested his machineguns bipod on the holes rimm, J knelt and fired into someone's head and Richard knelt too and shot singlefire with his thompson. Most of the undead persons fell through the fire.

"We couldn't hold them all off but I guess now we can again. A few hundred have made townfall though."

"Why isn't much police around here?" Goff asked.

"We've got everyone from Rpd reserve station up here. But we've had casualties and a mutiny."

---

_Listen_

Od listened intently. The male cop kept breathing normally and the female walked towards him. Od raised his arm and made a shh sound. The woman stopped and only small noises came. With shut eyes Od turned around and listened a bit longer. Nothing made loud, long or intense noises until the woman spoke.

"What did you do?"

"I kinda shot that thing you know?"

The lady looked confused:

"You know... the whooooosh!"

"The whoosh. Aha. And why did you try to shoot my partner?" It was clearly a threat.

"Nahhh I shot the thing. It was... between him'n me you know?"

"NO I don't know!"

Somewhere bangs, faint distant and far away, sounded. They stopped talking and listened for a moment. Then Od heard the noises of crushing snow. He spun around and saw that it was the male cop. Said man extended his hand for a shaking.

"Thanks mister. I don't what it was but I think it'd got me otherwise."

The two men shook hands while the woman looked bewildered at them.

"Danny you can't just-"

"How did you know about that thing anyway?" Danny continued without paying any attention to his protesting partner.

"Errrr... you know..."

"No."

"There was that voice and stuff." Od wasn't comfortable at saying that. Danny, as the cop seemed to be called, nodded slowly.

"The voice?"

"Yep the voice."

"Hmmm. The mysterious narrator from far away?"

Suddenly the woman came between them both with words and by stepping closer: "You can't just hold chitchat! You're arrested for-"

She got her handcuffs out and Danny gripped her hand. She suddenly looked back at him and narrowed her eyes. Seconds passed.

"We can drive to that department'n stuff." Od suggested. He didn't like the way how 'officer bruga', as her nametag said, looked.

"Helen we can talk that out and if he'd wanted to kill me he'd done it already."

Danny walked back towards the car and waved both to come among. Helen gave Od a look and got into the drivers seat. Od sat down behind Helen and started talking while starting the car.

"Me and my homies got our guns'n walked towards our community house. On the way came that huge black spider-thingy and killed two of us."

Danny kept looking at him interested and the car sped up.

"That thing just looks at you and you're hypnotised! One just shot himself and the other didn't struggle when it ate him."

Helen frowned.

"We called police but no one came and then we met two girls with a car. We drove with 'em and that thing ripped the roof off. After that it just empaled one of us 'n ate him! I mean it kept taking lead but didn't even mind. Then Bonnie rammed the thing into a lantern and it died."

Danny nodded and Helen drove on. Od noticed Danny's unease. The poor guy would certainly have an argument with his partner.

---

Shego's eyes opened and she looked around. Drakken knelt before her legs and was bandaging her injured leg. He didn't noticeher awaking. A lot of thoughts roamed through her head. Most of them were about her dream. She wanted to find out if it had really been just a dream. The table stood where it had stood before but the plate with her lunch's remains was missing.

But that wasn't an evidence so she looked around again. There was no wooden crate with food standing near the fridge. Just like in the dream. And the coat, just as the blanket, was the same like in the dream. Shego rubbed her temples witha hand: Just the hand that didn't belong to her injured shoulder.

"Was that really just a dream?" She mumbled.

"What was just a dream, Shego?" Drakken asked after getting his head up and starting to look at her.

"You winning against the princess!"

It was just the reaction Shego expected to come and it made her smile: Drakken scowled and raised a finger.

"Shego I already won against her... once!" He said angrily.

"But you lost against her little friend after that."

His face got even more angry and he scoffed loudly.

"Don't make the man angry who carried you here!"

She raised a brow and he continued: "I saved you Shego!"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh WOW you ARE a real hero now."

"Shego I'm serious I saved YOU this time."

"And what is that compared to the many times I saved YOU? One to twelve?"

He made a grmmml noise and returned to bandage her lower leg's muscle. Shego smiled: It really had been just a dream. The things told and done, the kiss and the confession had been just a dream. But one thing still bothered her and made the smile fade. Nothing had changed, but the question remained:

Would Drakken keep her with these cripplings?

"Drakken will you fire me because of my injuries?"

Her blueskinned boss looked up in confusion. Then he turned his head towards her and spoke: "No. And I've got this quickhealing gel in the oceanlair. You'll be healed in notime."

Shego wasn't fully convinced. "But the muscle's got to grow again-"

"The gel helps you with that too." He got back to bandaging her leg. Shego leant back into the pillows without putting stress on her injury. She was used to pain so the feeling remained subtle and not very strong. In fact the pain was barely feelable.

Drakken's hands kept moving over her bare leg. He had rolled her jumpsuit's legcloth up so that it made a slightly thick ring underneath her knee. Shego watched him going on with his work and his hands moving over her naked leg with nothing but thin cotton between. She knew he was doing it routined and without thinking much. But that didn't keep him from looking at her leg with interest from time to time.

She even felt like he would work a little bit slower than possible only to feel her warm leg a bit longer. She didn't bother because it felt nice how his hands gently moved over her skin. It was relaxing and almost like a massage without the necessary pressure. On the other hand pressing on her muscle would result in very high pain. So she let him carefully touch her body for as long as necessary.

She wouldn't mind him doing that a bit longer. In such moments it became obvious WHY he had a doctor's title. She sighed and relaxed deeper into the soft and warm blanket and coat around her. Its warmth wasn't as comforting as the knowledge that her secrets had remained secret and that she hadn't kissed her sweet little Doctor.

---

Kim ran past a corner with the unconscious Ron in her arms. Her eyes scanned the street she entered in and her feet sped on. On the right was a large officebuilding and a library to the left. She turned towards the office when something happened: She went around a car and the person stood before her. She saw nothing but the red flaring dots in the cars shadow. She took a step back in surprise as its weapon rose.

The metallic piece rose and the person didn't make any noise. There only noise was a small clink and clank from a small tin at the weapons left side, about at two thirds of its length.

_Left_

She jumped to the right and yellow lances cut through the cars metal and towards her body. But before they could reach her she jumped backwardsby quickly pressing her feet off the ground. She didn't slip and was happy for it. Kim saw black things fly with a yellow tail. She could swear to have seen greedy opened mouths at the bullets fronts. She made a backflip while gripping Ron closer to not drop him.

After landing her eyes automatically darted to the person while she put Ron on her right shoulder with his head on her back. But the only thing she saw were small pieces of metal that flew onto the cars side and dropped into the snow. A trail of thin grey smoke rose from where the wepons muzzle must have been before.

_Right_

She scoffed and didn't move. The noise of someone taking a deep breat into his lungs came behind her. It sounded shallow, empty and like as if a dead man would fill dead lungs. A bit of air blew past her face towards behind her like a weak wind. It was very cold.

_RIGHT_

Suddenly she felt Ron's head rising and it seemed to collide with something hard. A faint metallic clang came milliseconds before an infernalic hammering started and lances flew past her once again. Her entire body twitched in surprise and among the loud hammering was another faint noise: It was like as if someone hungrily took a single breath, like as if a vacuum would fill. The cold grew.

She turned around and saw the person. Black smoke, dust or fog seemed to fall from its entire body. Its weapon's muzzle pointed to somewhere beside her but it moved back to aim at Kim. But before it could fire again Kim gave it a kick and it fell from its users hands. The person didn't twitch or move as its weapon dropped into the snow. Her eyes focused on the red dots in, or infront of, its mask.

_Run_

Ron's head jerked up and she looked at in a reflex. A feeling of worry spread inside her.

When she returned her eyes the red dots kept flashing at her with unchanged intensity. But the person didn't move or do anything. It seemed to have forgotten about its weapon or it didn't care at all. The feeling of worry grew in intensity.

Kim wanted to just dropRon on the ground and look at his injured back again. Then it suddenly made sense:

_"Its the same person like on the picture!" _He had said. She felt guilt in her heart as she looked at his face. He had tried to warn her.

She didn't notice that the person's 'eyes' kept staring at her.

"And I yelled at you. Stupid me." The feeling of guilt grew closer and her body became slightly numb.

_RUN_

"Stupid me!" Her anger at herself for not noticing that he had tried to help grew stronger. Just as the feeling of guilt.

And the numbness which slowly changed to a feeling of powerlessness. The person just kept staring.

Kim started to feel very bad as memories came up. Memories of everytime she had been sarcastic to him. Of everytime he had been sad. And of the night when she had danced with Josh instead of getting him out of the janitors closet. Kim felt hate rising inside herself. Hate against herself, hate against Josh. Then she got the idea of how much it must have hurt him when shehad dated Josh while he had been in South America to get an antidote for her.

Hate, sadness, numbness and guilt grew but no other emotions came up. The person kept staring at herin the same waybut started to move its outstretched arm towards her neck. More memories came up to her surface of consciousness and Kim started to jump to conclusions. Most of them dealt with that she might have hurt Ron:

By being jealous on Yori, by keeping him so close that he hadn't noticed how much Tara had wanted him after Wannaweep and by taking so much of his time that it hadn't worked out with Zita. And there was another memory: It was dark, foggy, hidden, far away and unclear. But the hurt and hate that was connected to it radiated through its mantle of fog and conceilment. Hate from someone else on her.

Kimbit her lower lip in nervousness and fright as she started to believe that Ron might hate her. She knew that Ron kept giving her things, actions and, most important, his attention whenever she wanted it. Without asking and with no single doubt. He always came among on the missions andalways helped her. With not one single word of mocking. Even though she kept hurting him by dating other boys. She couldn't believe how much Ron had to be hurt from that.

Suddenly her head jerked up and all the passivity fell from her like an old jacket:

"Ron's hurt!"

She got up and ran towards the library. Kim didn't know why but she did. Even though she didn't know the reason her feet had started moving. The person didn't move because Kim had started off suddenly and with high speed. Its arm slowly went back to its earlier stance and a new machinegun seemed to _grow _out if its arm's pure blackness.

She entered the library and got to the restrooms within moments. After that she carefully dropped Ron on the floor and looked at his back after pullingthe pants away. It took her a few moments to get her eyes away from his legs and boxers.

"I didn't panic. I didn't."

She looked at him and found out that it wasn't as bad as she had believed it to be: The shirt had a few cuts of different lenght that went sideways over his back. Underneath these cuts were burnings that reminded her of clawmarks. Most weren't bad, they had merely scratched the skin's upper layers. Only one actually bled but it wasn't much. She relaxed and let her shoulders sink a bit. Kim turned around to look into her backpack and noticed someone standing in the mirror. She suddenly stood up:

"I didn't panic! Really!" Then she giggled nervously because of the man's empty glare. "Okay I did. But just a little bit!" She quietly admitted and scanned the man without turning around to see him 'in flesh'.

"So who are you?" Kim moved towards the backpack to grab her bandage while looking into the mirror. The man slowly shook his head and looked deep into her eyes. An immense feeling of cold gripped her. But it wasn't the same cold like the one she had felt around the person. It was a somehow warm and not evil cold.

"No? Mister no? I guess there was a Doctor named like that..." Somehow she lost the will to turn around. She felt like all time of the world stood still just for her and this moment. There was something special about the way he looked into her eyes _through _the mirror

She noticed a faint blue line or glow around the man's features but dismissed it as nonsense.

_"Leave...the Shadows..." _Both the word 'Shadows' and an aura of cold made her shiver faintly.

Kim's brows furrowed. It was very strange: The man spoke in a language she didn't _understand_. And even though she didn't _understand_ the words she _understood_ their meaning.

"_History_ repeats... _And history is past..."_ Again the cold made her whole body shiver. It seemed to come from the man and radiated from him into the entire room.

His voice became a bit thinner while saying the words. Not thinner like when someone starts speaking quiet. Thinner like when someone puts the volume of a tv lower. She listened closer to the man's voice. His entire appearance seemed to be ancients old. All of his movements were slow but, somehow, still fast enough to be normal.

"Yeah history normally passes by. Would be a bit strange if not." She rolled her eyes and felt like his look would punish her with cold for it.

"_Mirrors show the past...And the past always comes back..."_

He spoke weakly and looked through the mirror into her eyes. It didn't frighten or unsettle her how the man looked. It just felt uncommon. It felt like the man would judge her. Said man took six pockets that hung on his chest with the left hand. They were always three thin yellow-brown pockets with a latch and button at their tops.

"You mean like in that symbol of infinity? That eight that's been turned around?" Again his look made her feel a bit cold.

The man stood still and didn't answer for a few moments. It seemed like he would think without breaking the look into her eyes. There was something special, something strange but still common about the look. And about the eyes. There was no urge to turn around.

"_You must leave... the Shadows..._"

At the word 'Shadow' her entire body shivered slightly. The man's voice became very thin and distant, almost like a whisper from very far away.

_Listen to people from... Necropolis... They speak... truth..._"

"What do you mean Necro-" The man's head moved up and back and his eyes shut. Kim turned around and looked:

There was no one there.

---

No heartbeat. Maxblew more air into the girls mouth and proceeded with pressing on her chest for about three times. He bent down above her before another fountain of dirt flew up closely and landed on his back. More firings echoed through the godforsaken street. He got back to work and kept pressing.

She had to live.

Again he put air into her mouth while closing her nose. The chest rose as oxygen entered. He knew it meant that her lungs were still intact. A new series of impacts came while he pressed both hands on her chest. Normally he hadn't have had the time to take her shirt off, just as it was standart protocoll. Over a half minute had passed since he had reached her.

He checked the heartbeat by putting a finger on her hands wrist. There was none.

Again he pumped his lungs empty and was about to press on the chest when a weak cough came from her. He checked the heartbeat: Weakly and faint it drummed, drummed, drummed again and then seized to none again. Loud whistles flew and mean cracks erupted near their little hideout.

He looked up and around: The other people stayed where they should: In the craters. Then he ducked as bio-bullets flew.Just like the memorys everythingcame back: The noises, the firing, the undead, screams, and, in the end, death. It all came back. Just like the past always did.

---

Shego watched Drakken as he put the old bandage away. He came back and suddenly stopped as a noise came from the elevator. Three metallic clangs sounded, then an electroengine started and after that something started firing. Drakken listened to the sounds and slowly walked backwards to the couch. Shego looked up curiously what it might be.

"Drakken what-"

The doctor suddenly ran and tried to take her up and from the couch. She raised an arm to keep him from it but her shoulder started to ache heavilly at the movement. She was about to yell at him when the firing seized, a loud metallic bang came together with the sound of a dying electric engine. Shego gritted her teeth to bite the pain away and looked at the elevator.

A huge lumbermade closet stood in the way and suddenly everything moved: Drakken was running into the kitchen and she kept looking over his shoulder. He stopped i front of the fridge as something banged against the closet. The bangs repeated quickly. He stood still.

"Shego take the zapdinator!"

There were not many things she was frightened off. And taking that thing was definately one of these things. She used her '"good" arm to open the fridge and Drakken started to grow nervous. The bangs got louder, faster and harder as she looked at the pistollike device. It had a few futuristic looking coils around its barrel. Shego remembered what came out of that barrel: Highly dangerous yellow balls.

"Get it! Quick!" Drakken demanded and shot the closet a very nervous look. Shego tried to take the pistol from the fridges inner top but it was glued hard. She tried again and even lit her hands up to unfreeze the glue. The bangs got louder and the blank floor screeched loudly as the closets legs were pressed against the ground and moved over it violently. Lumber started to crush under immense pressure.

"Leave it be!" Drakken yelled and ran into his own bedroom where the fireladder was. Shego sensed that something was wrong everytimehe left one of his inventions behind. Which was a rare thing. Shego lit her hand up again and looked at the closet. Something made its interior collaps and sucked it in. Behind the closet was nothing but pure blackness and it seemed to go through the closet like a spear through flesh. It spread out both towards them and to the sides.

She shot two packs of green flame into the dark wall that crawled over the walls surface. But her flames simply vanished within the perfect darkness without doing anything. Drakken stopped infront of the fireladder and nervously stomped from one foot to the other.

"What?"

"Open the window Shego!"

She smiled slashed the window with a lit up hand. Even though it saddened her to damage her secret lair. Drakken bent down and carefully moved her through the window and followed after that. Shego gave another look over his shoulder and fired more bolts into the black wall behind them. It seemed to simply move along the walls and furniture. Drakken suddenly stopped and put her down.

She wanted to ask something but he was already through the window and ran towards her room. For that he had to go through the entire living room while the blackness spread out from the left side. He ran past the black wall and jumped over the couch that was already covered in half.

She yelled something but it was too late: A black tentacle lashed out for Drakken. She shot green bolts but they didn't do anything. Her entire body tensed and she bit her lower lip. It just wasn't allowed to be.

But Drakken surprised her and the blackness by jumping forward and landing flat on the ground with a thomp. He quickly got up and disappeared in her room. After a few seconds that seemed like eternity she yelled:

"Drakken! Come out! It's not worth it!"

Desperation gripped her body and heart as no response came. The darkness spread and already held three fourth of the room. Its grips and fangsran around the doors frame. The door to her secret room. Just the door to her past. It began to shut the room and isolate it from the rest.

Shego began to bite her lips harder and tears began to run down her cheeks. Drakken would lose. Everything would become nothing. Then suddenly Drakken jumped through the door and through the blackness. Its layer was still rather thin but it slowed Drakken significantly. It seemed like he would be halted in time as he barely moved through the black darkness.

It didn't seem like he would cut through the darkness. Instead his bodyput the blackness away like a fish puts water away. Thick and slow drops of blackness unwillingly moved away from him. As he touched ground again thick droplets still hung at his shirt, jeans and bare skin. A bit hung in his hairs what made them way more dark.

Almost the entire room was covered with blackness and the only free corridor was a little piece of space near the wall. He ran past the couch, which was already nolonger there and pressed himself near the wall and ran for his life. Shego couldn't do anything but watch him running and it saddened her deeply. Drakken ran and ducked under another tentacle. Shego wanted to help. Being a liability was the last thing she wanted to.

Finally Drakken made it to the window and pulled at its frame. Shego sensed he was being held by something and crawled forward. Her arms gripped around his neck and pulled him back. After a seconds lasting powerstruggle he finally gained ground. He fell forward and she still pulled him closer.

Drakken dropped on her and Shego pressed him close. Even the heavy pain in her injured shoulder didn't get her arms back from his neck. She was way too happy to have him back to release him. He was breathing hard, way harder and deeper than one should after a that short sprint. But it didn't matter. They lay there for seconds that felt way too short for Shego.

Shego didn't want to but still released her arms. The one who belonged to the injured shoulder went down to lower the hurt while the other went underneath Drakken's chest. His head lay beside hers and kept going up and down among the breathing. Her hand gently rested on his left chest and she felt the immense drums of his heart. And was happy for it. Happy to hear his heart beating.

She gently pushed him up which was difficult with only one hand. He slowly started to support his own weight with his own arms.

"Drakken why did you do this?" Shego tried to stay calm but failed. Her voice was filled with both anger and relief.

"Err... " He whistled lowpitched and inhaled more air. Then he slowly stood up and rested against a wall. Shego tried to get up but her shoulder and leg started hurting again due to the movement. Drakken quickly got back to her and supported her weight. She didn't want to accept the help because help meant weakness anddependance. And only liabilitys needed help.

She rejected his hands and pushed them away. He looked confused and exhausted but took the hands away. Shego tried to stay upright but her body dropped down again. Drakken took her body up and slowly rose to a full stance again. She was about to slash at him but the darkness seemed to claim the windows frame and slowly dripped through the walls bricks.

"Downwards!" Shego snarled at him and kept looking sternly into his eyes. It was still a mystery why he had suddenly left.

Drakken didn't talk back, which was rare too. Instead he walked two stairs down. Then came a long ladder that lead downwards. Shego looked up and saw that thestairs were slowly being engulfed by the darkness. Drakken sighed, put her down on the stair's rimm and jumped down the ladder. Shego sat there with the legs hanging free and watched him drop into the snow.

He landed on his feet, dropped to the knees and almost collapsed. He coughed heavilly and got up after a few seconds. After that he took a firefighters stance and motioned Shego to drop down. A human shape dropped on his arms and he knew that he couldn't resist the weight.

So Drakken let himself drop to the back and weakened Shego's impact. Together with his coat and the blanket Shego didn't yell or scream from pain. Drakken was proud of that fact as he collapsed into the snow. The cold bit into his skin with a very mean sting and he tried to stay awake.

Shego tried to get from Drakken but failed: Her 'bad' arm created huge pain in the respective shoulder and she collapsed into him with a muffled yell. Her hand rested on his chest again and they lay like that for a few seconds. Shego watched how bright the stars shone and how beatifull her breath condensed.

Warm small clouds came out both mouths which stood very close to each other. Their breaths mixed as Shego's head lay on his shoulder and her 'good' hand rested on his other bare shoulder. It felt warm.

She felt how Drakken started to shiver and she untied the blanket from her body. It was difficult but she made it and put the blanket over herself and him. After that she mover hand to his neck and put his head up. She wanted to say something nice, warm and comforting. Something that would help him.

"Drakken get up you lazy dork! The world isn't being qonquered all by itself!"

Her doctor groaned and his eyes opened. Both looked into each others eyes and almost sunk into them. It was slowly getting dark but was still daylight. Drakken's eyes seemed to reflect both the sweet starlight and the darkness. Their heads slowly came closer and Shego tilted her head a bit to the side.

Drakken seemed to be a bit frightened but his head moved in similar manner. His eyes kept hers in a sweet prison just like hers were a cage for his. Then Shego saw something in his eyes. Something that spoiled, defiled and mocked their beauty. She bit her lips gently because of nervousness.

It was strange: She had never seen how beautifull his eyes were. How sweetly dark they were and how the soft oceanblue mixed with it. But there was something in that eye that mirrored. She saw herself and Drakken lying in the snow, kissing gently and long. It somehow frightened her but the warmth that came with that thought was superiour.

But among that picture was another thing: It was a ring of darkness and forgetting that closed around them. And the picture of their sweet kiss faded and was swallowed by darkness. It almost broke her heart: She had to refuse just the thing she wanted to do.

She had to reject him in the only moment that they were close. Forced to be close but close nontheless.

She thought about how to let it look like an accident, like something would have got in the way. Like it wouldn't be like she would have declined that offer. But no thought came. Instead their heads came closer.

Then Drakken's head suddenly jumped to the side and he sneezed. Shego used that moment to turn around and look at the black wall. It came closer without any form of noise.

"Drakken that ... thing!" She yelled and he quickly snappedback toattention.

Her doctor turned her to her side without hurting her injuries, she put an arm over his shoulder and on his back and let the injured shoulder's hand rest in her lap. He took at torso and knees again and hieved her up with a huge groan. He started walking away from the darkness and started to run.

Shegp kept looking at his lips asher head rested on Drakken's shoulder. She didn't want to be a such liability but couldn't walk herself. Or maybe she could.

"Dr. Dtake a break." She demanded in her usual, slightly aggressive and annoyed voice. He nodded and rested on a parkbench. "They" had walked for about three minutes and Drakken's arms had started to lower many times. One time she had been frightened he could drop her.

A few moments later Drakken sat on the bench and Shego on his lap. She watched him all over: The dark drops had left like as if they had been air and he was stil heavilly exhausted. She tried to be nice:

"Why're you so freaking exhausted anyway?" Shego slowly got down from his lap and sat down beside him. The blanket still covered both of them and her good hand went over his back and rested onthe tigh. He didn't respond.

"And why did you run there any-" Drakken withdrew a small book from his jeansbeltand held it towards her.

Shego's eyes widened and she grabbed it quickly.

"My Diary!" She said in a both confused and happy tone. BeforeDrakken knew what happened her arms went around his neck and she gave him a long and sweet kiss on the cheek. Drakken looked confused and rubbed his cheek gently but Shego didn't notice. She was too engulfed in examining her beloved diary.

---

The heart still didn't beat. It was more than bad. Over a minute had passed since he had gotten to her and she still didn't breath. Again his flat hands pressed on her t-shirt covered chest. He didn't have eyes for the wonderfull curves of her breasts, nor did he care about the beautifull lips he touched repeatedly. It was nothing but repeating of training. But it still was more. Once Again.

He pressed air into her mouth again, just as he had practised in training. He kept pressing onto her heart like he had learned and practised. Everything worked even with the bombardment. But there was no reaction. He was no doctor, he knew that. Histrainingand experienceshould keep her alive until an ambulance could take over. But no ambulance would come, no doctor would appear and no nurse could take over. So he had to go on. There was no one else to blame and no one could take the responsibility from him.

He would have to carry the consequences. Again.

And the heart kept standing still as panic started to rise in his heart. Panic of failing at a simple task and having to carry the horredous consequences. The panic of failing someone into death seized his heart. He didn't want to simply be failure. He didn't want to murder someone with incompetence as weapon. Fear made him press harder, faster and more often. But there was still no reaction.

"LIVE DAMMIT!"

But nothing happened. No matter how much he struggled he couldn't save anyone around him. Once more he would fail like he had done in the past. It wouldn't be a mistake. It would be a failure.Max wanted the girl to live. But it got clearer every second, every time he pressed and every time he gave the girl's brain and body oxygen:

The past would repeat. His failure would repeat.


	37. The Dark

The hovercar flew over an empty street. Snow lay everywhere like a thick blanket and the day slowly started to end. A harsh wind blew from the front and into Henry's face. It's bitewas very cold and the temperature was below zero. He also wore nothing but a patient's gown. Not even a jacket would have helped much. He drove to the left at a crossing and looked at the buildings.

They stood there, lonely and grey. Most of them were officebuildings or huge housing complexes. The weak light of a dying sun bounced off their walls without really enlightening them. He drove among the street and was mesmerized by the buildings lines and shapes. Sharp features were rounded by the snow and lost their sharpness. The snow covered and hid most details at the huge constructions and made them look similar in shape and color. The differences faded just as the slowly dropping sun and everything became grey shapeless blurs.

Combined with the huge speed his strange vehicel inheritated the landscape became blurry, faint and everything lost its individuality. The snow forced everything into conformity and made any shape become similar to everything else. Henry watched in surprise as the first crystalls of snow dropped to the ground and one on his nose. He felt strange, just as if the grey, conforming and muddy snowwould be nothing but a mirror and example of the last two years of his life. The snow seemed to swallow any light but still mirrored his life.

What a contrast.

The snow and landscape delivered not even one single contrast except for that one. Henry felt strange and somehow guilty. The buildings looked like no one would have taken care of them for at least years. Just like he hadn't taken care of his family for years. No one had been there for his three daughters and his wife. But that would change. Henry swore that he would never again leave his family.

Even if it was literally cut in half.

He "flew" past another sidestreet and saw a huge group of undead shambling through it. He knew what that meant: Either the defences had broken and everyone had died or his friends had run out of ammo and had to retreat. The street wasn't on his way, it was rather a detour. But he wanted to do something and carefully aimed the cars front at a group of people. He pulled the heightlever and the car rose to about a humans hight. An evil smile crossed his face as the vehicle raced towards a head. He would make them pay for his familys tragedy.

---

Kim kept holding Ron while running through another alley. It was still a mystery who the person in the mirror had been and how it had disappeared. But Kim listened when people gave her advice. At least when they're mysterious mirrorpeople. She kept thinking about the person that seemed to hunt them: Was it the criminal in his protective suit? She had been held at the throat by him that way once. And it wouldn't be a surprise if he wanted revenge.

She felt bad about what she had done. But Kim knew that something had somehow manipulated her will to make her do such things. It had felt like as if a different person had done the stomping. She knew that nothing could have made her do such sadistic things on free will. As she gave Ron, who still didn't move, a look doubt filled her.

Hadn't she thought nothing could make her want to kiss Ron? The moodulator proved the opposite. And hadn't she thought that nothing could make her date Josh without being an emberrassing liability? Drakken's strange powder showed she could. And that somehow lit her mood a bit: All the things she believed to be out of character had happened when something had changed her. Either by chemistry or mental things.

So she ran further and stopped at a crossing: An enlightened and a dark street with many shadows kept waiting for her decision. Kim took the latter since she believed to be able to hide in the shadows.

Little did she know that other things already did so...

---

His own heart pumped and another one didn't. Max knew it wasn't fair. He gave the street a short look: The five bioartilleries walked closer and one stopped to fire at him. But he knew that a few moments remained for looking around and spotted new enemys:

At least a half dozen of Crawlers and several undead packs. So at least thirty enemys to take care off. He ducked again and didn't pay attention to the direct fire. The girl's life was more important. As he kept pressing he remembered the moment of failure that he had lived through before: Everything became blurry and the girls body reshaped into a grown man's one. It was a cop. It was Jackson.

The environment was familiar: The craters were the same just as the incoming rain of death. The snow started to melt from the immense heat that came from the burning buildings. It started to build streams of blood and snow that went down into the craters his comrades lay in. The bioartillery was not just five but twenty beings who kept firing. He pressed on the man's chest more and more violently while the entire world around him shattered to crimson and grey pieces.

He was in Upperton once again. In the Upperton of the past, the Upperton of his painfull memorys. He was in the burning city:

Nekropolis.

A huge building that stood just a few meters away from him collapsed and sprayed sparks over the entire street. The hot small dots set down on his shoulders and hair as he kept ramming his flat hands upon the dying mans chest. His own breathing was fast and loud but its noises died underneath the immense crackling of fire that ate through lumber, steel and flesh.

The greedy moans of the undead hallowed over the street and into everyone's hearts. The bioartillery kept them pinned and they couldn't do anything against it but wait. Wait until the vile enemy came in gunrange. A crater received a full hit and threw its content in a fountain of fleshy chunks, bones and cloth over the entire former street. As his hands kept going down once more he witnessed another craters crew panicking.

Four of the five men ran away and, as Max knew, into their safe deaths. The streets marble got thrown up in bizarre rythms and two fell to the shockwaves of explosions. One of them simply dropped sideways like a heavily hit puppet while the other kept making slow steps forward. His body twitched before simply collapsing like a bunch of potatoes.

The other two were cut down by the supreme firepower of multiple biomachineguns. One's chest received multiple hits into the back and exploded its entire content upon the ground infront of him. Pieces of lungs, bone, gut and soul splat out of him like a smashed water melon. A young marine didn't duck away in time and the emptied body clashed on him and flung them both into the craters deepest point.

In these points the mustardgas from the first firingraid lurked for victims. The poor young man started to caugh violently as his lungs were burnt away by the heavily aggressive acid. The gas was a so practical invention that only the typical human brain's sadistic efficience could have thought it out:

The gas was colorless, didn't have any taste and couldn't be seen. It stayed in the air for hours and killed even in minimal doses. Max could understand why such gas was forbidden by the conventions of genf. From the things he had heard it was already bad but in that moment he truly experienced why: It either murdered its victim over hours and made it suffocate by its own foamy and blooddripped lung's remains or just burnt them away within a few minutes. It depended on the dose. Max didn't know anything that could get the gas out as soon as it had entered the lungs.

Another mean thing was that the gas only became fluid through the lung's warmth. And it got acidous as soon as it became fluid. But it wasn't really fluid, neither was it just a gas anymore. It was too fluid to just be spat out but too airlike to just be coughed out at the same time.

He hoped that the poor guy would become unconscious before dying but knew that it wouldn't happen that 'nicely'. He stopped thinking of it and focused on his task. The dying man's face was illuminated by the dancing and flickering light of the burning buildings around them. Everything burned: Houses, ships and even a few scorched corpses remained from the last bioflamer's attack. They lay in positions that clearly showed they had fought for long time agianst the hungry biologicly enhanced napalm.

James came from the crater that lay before the one Max was in and threw himself down beside him. He got up and yelled something but Max was still deaf from a near explosions shockwave. James grabbed his arm and pulled him up what forced Max to just run among. As he turned his head around he saw two things.

The entire street infront of them was in flames. Dark shapes with flamers and red flaring eyes kept lashing their hungry fires in long streams at the ones who hadn't ran away when James had. They were too late. No one had noticed the Dark coming close. James had told them about the black shapes with weapons, about their inhuman precision, painresistance and invulnerabitlity.

The flames seemed to be the shape's home because the flames lashed over the ground and moved among the Dark's steps. It was like as if a painter would simply roll over a wall with his roll. And the Dark were that roll. The flames were small and only a few centimeters high at the Dark's feet but rose to meters behind them. There where at least a dozen of these immortal and soulless killers.

Max had always wanted to wear a such flamesafe mantle, gasmask and helmet. He had always wanted to just burn the undead away. The craters were still filled with cops, marines and armed civilians. The dark moved their faintly blue glowing muzzleflames towards the craters and the faint blue strings grew to huge yellow walls that filled the craters. Max saw one of the poor cops trying to crawl away from the oncoming hellfires.

His legs were nothing but scorched stumps as the Dark kept coming closer without really paying attention to the poor man. The flames greedily moved over the mans body among the Dark's pace until they covered the full person. It became nothing more but a black thing that moved until it gave up and kept lying.

Max suddenly lost the wish to use flamers and mantles.

More and more craters in the 'first line' got torched out and more people died to the humanmade flames. It seemed clear that normal fire couldn't do such things. That it couldn't be so brutally and mechanicly efficient. Everything happened within mere seconds but the screams of the dying burnt themselves into his mind and heart. No one who survived whould forget the day that mankind itself lost its right to live.

The people who couldn't escape the wall of fire, which were all but James and Max, screamed in a way no mortal being should ever scream. They began in the normal deep male voice, slowly got highpitched until to the point of a young boy and then faded. The effect was produced by the fire that ate through the skin and body and then into the lungs.

All victims literally screamed their lungs and soul out. The flames weren't human but were created through human hands. They burnt the body that held the soul faster than said spiritual sessence could escape. Normal fire couldn't and didn't want to consume human souls. Everytime a crater got torched the mustardgas got incenerated and made a huge washing wave towards the opposite direction. Which was the direction the people tried to run to.

It rose in huge fountains and incinerated the few that had made it to get out. It seemed like the gas itself would be angry about not being allowed to kill like it wanted to and took bloody revenge for it. Max was surprised that no drop of blood was left in, on and around the burning victims. It boiled inside the veins and arteries to torment the poor souls even further.

And the other thing was the man he had tried to reanimate. He was alive and stretched his arm towards the running lateteen. The eyes showed fear and pity. Max started to turn around but James grip got hard like iron and pulled him further. So he ran away together with the elite Swat officer and let the man die. He blamed himself for it as the man was consumed by the hungry wave of seemingly living flames.

He had kept calling Max's name again and again even while burning. Max learned that even souls could fall to ashes.

Suddenly everthing became 'normal' again. The terrible screams of the dying stopped, the flames stopped their crackling and the snow became snow again. Someone was shaking him and he turned around. It was James, but his stern and focused face slowly wandered into the one of a young woman. He tilted his head aside and looked closer as the background's apocalyptic flames stopped and got replaced by the numb grey of the heavens.

Max looked down and saw the young lady resting in his arms. Her chest rose faintly, then it rose again and after that once more: She was alive! His eyes went back to Tara and he noticed that she yelled something. He didn't understand what she wanted and watched how her arms flayed around.

He saw a different girl lying on the crater's rimm and pulled her into the barely safe hole. A venom-stinger stuck in her stomach.

---

Shego didn't want to be carried around by Drakken so she stood up herself. She used her good arm to keep the blanket around herself and slowly rose. Drakken's eyes followed her and he seemed to be ready for something. Shego didn't know what exactly he was ready for but it didn't matter. Her 'bad' leg started making contact with the ground and everything happened like it should. Then she redirected the weight.

She was about to congratulate herself when her muscle started hurting heavilly. She gritted her teeth and tried to resist but failed. Her entire body let loose and she collapsed. A painfull cry fought its way through her teeth as she expected to impact on the cold snow. But that didn't happen. The pain in her leg was like a cramp: It became stronger as soon as it started and didn't go away.

She fell forward and suddenly halted in midair. Her eyes opened and she made it to prevent herself from crying even though the pain was ridicolous. Something warm held her stomach and lower leg. She turned her head around and saw that it was Drakken. He kept breathing much and pulled her onto the bench. Shego didn't want to and tried to get his arms off herself but didn't make it.

Drakken dropped her on the bench with her legs on his lap. Shego lit her good hand up and was about to throw a bolt of green energy at him when the pain in her leg slowly left. Her eyes widened as she saw that the reason was that Drakken somehow massaged her muscle. It was strange how he did it but it felt nice. And it got the pain away. Somehow. She kept staring at him in confusion.

It was like a cramp: The pain slowly died away until it was not much anymore. It was still there, just like small rivers that stayed after rain. Drakken released her leg and Shego got up. After that she turned until she sat beside him. He froze terribly. Her brows furrowed as she remembered the Himalaya 'incident'. Slowly she opened the coat and held it towards him. Drakken looked confused.

"Come on take it. I've got the blanket."

"But-"

"NO but it's just gonna be like... never mind. Just take the stupid coat."

He still didn't take it so she solved the problem just like she always did when Drakken didn't listen. She lit her hand up. Drakken quickly took the coat on and Shego watched him while doing so.

"I always thought only your face was blue Dr. D."

"Huh?"

"I just thought you'd got some soap in your face once."

Drakken gave her a mean look and turned his attention back to the buttons at his chest. After that he turned around and moved closer to his injured assistant.

"The world's qonquerer stands before you!" He proudly announced and pressed his chest out.

"Wannabe-qonquerer!" Before Drakken reacted with an angry rant Shego pressed on his blown up stomach and made his lungs pump out. He quickly grabbed his stomach and fought for air after dropping to the ground. She watched it for a few moments and got bored.

"Dr. D stand up."

No reaction came. Instead he kept breathing hard.

"Get up dammit!" Again he didn't react. Shego rolled her eyes and got out the trumphcard: She immitated Drakken's mother:

"Drewbie! Get up!"

Drakken immediatly snapped up and looked her.

"Mum?"

"No luckily not."

Drakken gave her another mean look after standing up. He got the snow off his coat and looked critically at his coat if there was ANY piece of white left on it. Shego just rolled her eyes at Drakken's stupid obedience to the villains digest and its rules. One of these was that a villain wasn't allowed to have white on his dress except for lines or zippers. She was sick of that her boss kept obeying these stupid rules.

He walked close to her and spoke:

"I gotta carry you Shego."

"WHAT?"

"Well you can't walk yourself so-"

---

Drakken didn't know what he had said in his usual 'Drakken-ness'. Shego got boltstraight in a quick move. But she hadn't thought of her muscle so she collapsed again while yelling from the pain. The blueskinned man bent down to catch the woman that served him well. If one ignored the snappyness and the problems she had with authority. In this case HIS authority.

Drakken barely catched her and carefully got her injured leg up in time to prevent the cut muscle from cramping. He knew it would be a sort of pain not even Shego could resist against. The 'best' thing that could happen to her was that she fell unconscious again. But Drakken wasn't a Doctor for nothing. He felt how Shego resisted against his attempts to force her on the bench but won after a short struggle.

He was amazed that this woman could actually have enough strength to fight the pain AND him. Shego finally acted like a normal human and not like one who had strange superpowers and was a handtohand specialist. Finally her hands gripped the muscle in futile attempts to press the right spots. Her intense gripping only made it worse: Both because she moved her injured shoulder and because the pain made her press violently into the leg.

Drakken pressed her hands away and put her down. After that he pressed the muscle's strings back into the right order. Shego kept breathing hard and rested her arms in a way that didn't stress the wounded shoulder. Her head sank down and she looked at Drakken who knelt before her. One could easily mistake the moment for a man who asked a woman to be his wife.

Her eyes were filled with sifferent feelings: Pain, fear and hate. But there was something else. It was deeply hidden and Drakken saw it for the first time: It was Shego's soft side. The truly human part of her. It was just the part she never showed. He wanted to ask her about that part but knew that her pride wouldn't let her. And that her pride would make her hurt him. Badly.

So he decid to let the topic rest. He knew that telling her she was a liability would be the worst thing to do. Drakken could just tell her that but decid against it. Already the fact that she hadn't yelled at him because of his skillfullness in being a liability was reason enough to don't do that. He sat down beside her and put the blanket back around her. It had dropped onto the bench when she had stood up.

Shego looked at him as he did so.

"Wha-"

"Shego this isn't easy but I've got to carry you."

"No you-"

"AH AH AH!" His eyes narrowed and that silenced her. "There are no henchmen around to do that remember?"

Shego laughed a bit. "Great joke Dr. D. You finally get some humor."

His brows furrowed. "That was no joke! These idiots will get no pay this month!"

Shego rolled her eyes: "They won't need paycheques anymore."

His face showed even more confusion.

"They're dead Drakken. Remember?"

Drakken looked sad and turned his head away. Shego quickly regretted her words. A long silence follwed and she felt more and more uncomfortable. Both from the cold and from being exposed to eventuell enemies. The pain was there, too of course. She began to freeze lightly and snuggled deeper into the blanket. Drakken shivered heavilly and rubbed his hands. Shego knew they had to leave.

She gave him a look and their eyes met. Both stared into each others eyes for a few seconds before looking back to the street and their house. It looked just like before the blackening. Drakken stood up and walked towards it when Shego yelled at him:

"No! It'll just get dark again!"

"But... But it's cold!" Drakken replied while making some sort of male dogpout. Shego rolled her eyes.

"Then we'll just find another house."

"But my whole Snowman Hank collection is in there!"

Shego sighed heavilly. Drakken came back and sat down again. Suddenly his face lit up.

"What about a piggyback ride?" He asked like a little child that wanted candy.

"NO I won't carry you that way like I did on your last birthday! I still remember the backache I had after that!"

"I mean reverse Shego!" It clicked in her mind.

"No! NO you WON'T!"

But it was too late. Drakken had already gripped her tigh and bent down infront of her. She unwillingly gave in and let his hands grip into her knees. He slowly got up and made a few steps.

"Yeah... goes... Shego what do you mean?"

"Huh? What?"

"Robots that carry other robots with deathrays piggyback!" He grinned his stupid grin. It was kinda sweet sometimes. Sometimes.

"Then you'd need two robots for one deathray AND the princess would take down two bots with one strike each. Think of something better Drakken."

The doctor stopped grinning and thought for a few more moments. Shego pointed towards a building and Drakken started to walk.

"What about robotic bees that got deathrays as stingers!"

"No."

"Awwwww..." Drakken had seen the building before but hadn't noticed that it lay at least a half kilometer away. "Awwww..."

"Shut up and go! Maybe you finally lose some pounds." Drakken straightened his arms again and mumbled:

"YOU should lose some pounds-"

Shego's smile faded and she lit her good hand up just a few inches infront of his face. The other hand kept resting on his chest.

"WHAT? What did you say?" She growled at him.

"Uhhhh... Nothing Shego! You're... errr... as light as a feather!"

"That's what I want to hear. Faster!" She put her feet into his hips like a rider into her horse what made him groan a bit.

---

Kim ran into a shadow and hid. The person came around the corner she had passed just a few seconds ago. It surprised her since it had been at least ten seconds behind her. It only walked in its steady pace and never ran. So Kim was faster than it but strangewise it always got up in time. It seemed like the man would come closer everytime she didn't look.

It turned around and looked into the street. Its eyes flared and it stepped into the shadows that lay between two lamps. She expected it to step out of the darkness but it didn't. Her brows furrowed as she saw black dusk, fog or smoke coming over the street. It looked like a small wave of thin blackness that whirled, twisted and seperated into different round streams of black stuff.

Kim hadn't seen something like that before: It seemed fluid but was still gaslike and nothing but moving blackness. The streams went into different shadows around her and disappeared within them. Kim kept looking around and hoped that it hadn't seen her. Thoughts came: Was that still a normal human? Could that criminal have powers she didn't know of?

Ron mourned and his head rose. She turned around and saw something behind him: Red dots, flaring, hungry and longing. She got up and the memory of the photo came up: The intense feeling of threat among the dull emptieness inside her came back. Kim realised that it was the same feeling she had have had when the person had stood behind her.

She got up and ran out of the shadows without looking back. She somehow knew that the darkness filled with red points as shapes formed within them, far away from the human eye. She got her infrared goggles on again and gave the street a look:

The shadows, among the darkness itself, moved. The dots were points in chunks of something that seemed to grow within the darkness. And somehow the shadows increased in their blackness. It felt like something was drained from them, something that everything had. Everything within the blackness moved. Normally everything got a different color through the goggles but the darkness stayed perfectly black.

Like as if nothing could change the fact that it was pure blackness.

Suddenly a part of the blackness moved into the light and it took the shape of a human form. The shadows moved around it and returned to their point of origin. But the shape remained. Blackness moved away from it like cold that flew from an iceblock or fog that stood in a harbour's bay.

The fog dropped from the person's shape as it started to step forward. Two red dots flashed from nowhere inside the person's 'face'. A huge machinegun grew out of its right arm as more shapes stepped out of the shadows. More and more pairs of red flares grew out of and within the darkness. Kim felt that the temperature around her dropped very far below zero.

She kept running away but another shape suddenly stepped away from the corner. Its feet glid over the snow without moving it and its weapon rose. Kim jumped into the air as it shot and the bullets flew by just like the immensly loud hammering. Her foot rammed into its head but didn't find any grip. It didn't react in any way. Her foot went trough the head like as if it wasn't there. But it _was _there. Somehow.

She dropped through the thing with a surprised yelp and fell into the snow. Ron slipped out of her arms and something held her leg. Kim looked at the manlike shape. It slowly and steadily turned around and more of them rose out of the dark street behind her. A grey fog covered the ground as more and more black pillars rose and black shapes stepped out of them. Their red eyes flared up as soon as they left the pillar of darkness. The maybe ten red orbs created a strangely inaudible symphony of hatred.

Ron slowly rose as the shape stopped turning around. Its helmet seemed to be part of its head and showed no detail. The eyes drained something out of her. Kim looked down and saw that her leg was slowly being pulled into the thing's middle. It's red flares torched themselves into her mind and heart. Kim pulled her leg away again and again but it didn't help.

Instead her leg got drawn into the blackness deeper every time she tried to free it. The other shapes came closer and the pressure within her mind increased. It felt like as if she would explode from inside. Suddenly Ron's hands gripped into her armpits and pulled. He struggled heavilly. The thing before them seemed to feast on his desperation like on a rare delicassy.

Kim got an idea while she was nothing but a pawn in a struggle for power. It was not a good idea and but it was an idea nontheless.

"Ron give me the grappling hook!"

Kim saw that more shapes came closer. Some of them had the shape of someone in a mantle and small blue flames came from gunlike tubes they held. Three of the blackened men stood around her and simply watched as she tried to not get sucked into the shape. Her mind got squished like a huge sponge. It felt horrible.

Ron handed her the hook and she looked around. Another shape came closer without making any noise. Kim felt the heat from its gun's thin blue flame. It fought against the immense coldness the shapes had around them like an aura. It stopped a few feet infront of her just as the others had and simply stared at her. The pressure within her increased immensly as she felt another hand pressing inside.

No place was in sight. It was horrible. Kim couldn't believe that there was no place where her grappling hook could find grip. No wall to bash into, no door's grip to link to and no ventilation shaft to jump into. There was no escape. She looked at the shape and felt her panic rise. Its eyes kept staring at her and Ron who had started to pull at her once again.

She felt no hate against these 'people'. They seemed to follow an urge, order or instinct. She remembered that she couldn't truly hate even Drakken and Shego. No matter how often they had tried to kill her or her family she just couldn't. It was their nature, their motivation. They were evil and cruel but somehow even they obeyed rules of ethic. She couldn't understand why they just didn't use guns or or boobytraps.

But that wasn't the time for such thoughts. The hook was there just as a target. She had gone through many dangerous moments before but this was a different form of danger. These things represented a new form of evil. They were the indefeatable, immortal and always returning darkness. They used guns. And as the information from Wade showed they killed with no remorse. And that only a photo of them could already threaten her in a way she still didn't know showed that they were powerfull. Maybe too powerfull for the girl that could do anything.

She didn't want to do it. It was against her ethics and morality. But she would do it. Because it was the only way to save Ron's and her life.

Kim aimed the grappling hook at the thing, closed her left eye and shot. It wasn't different from all the other times she had shot the thing except for that she shot at someone this time. The hook left with the familiar sound, it flew through the air like it always did and impacted the head. It didn't really hit the thing's head since the hook seemed to just vanish in the darkness of it.

The sucking around her leg seized and she got up. The hook returned. Or what was left of it, which was just the rope. She took Ron's hand and ran towards a corner. None of the shapes had moved. Kim didn't know why but she sensed that they kept eating on what they had taken from her. The pressure seized but it was still there. The further they ran the more and more subtle it became. After a few minutes it became nothing but a subtle shadow in her mind.

A shadow that would never leave.

They ran past the car and Kim kept a safe distance from its shadow but Ron ran into it. He seemed to be drawn to the darkness. She was about to yell something when he vanished in the shadow. Her eyes widened and she just stood there, stunned. Then Ron came out of the darkness with a huge machinegun in his hands.

"Hey KP look what I found!" He said happily. "Maybe we can keep these things off us with this!"

Kim didn't want Ron to have a weapon. It made him a different Ron. A Ron that wasn't HER Ron.

"Put that thing away Ron. That thing behind us dropped it."

"But-"

"Maybe it will... I don't know. Do something to you."

Ron acknowledged her worries and looked at his 'trophy'. Then he gripped it closer and said:

"I'll only use it if I have too! And if we find someone who can use it better I'll just give it to him. How about that?"

Kim wasn't comfortable with it but had to agree.

"But Ron! Guns only kill people! They take everything from you! Everyone you love and everything that's dear to you!"

Ron ignored her protest and kept standing where he was. Kim sighed and let her shoulders sink. When she looked Ron smiled at her.

"I'll be careful I promise. And I surely won't have to use it."

Kim sighed again. "Fine. But you give it to the first person we meet!"

"Booyah!"

---

Another burst flew among the area and two of the undead fell. Then Max moved the machinegun on its bipod for mere centimeters and a crawler stood at notch and bead sight. Again his weapon fired its loud sawlike rrr's. The creature screeched as bullets cut through it and it rolled into a crater in the blink of an eye. A shouldermove later an undead came in sight and got mowed down just as the others who had come out of cover.

After that he moved his shoulder a bit further to what he had wanted to shoot at first: One of the three bioartillerys that had walked out of its protecting crater. His eyes spotted the huge creature even through his mudstained glasses.

Tfrrrrrr his mg made and the thing just fell forward. It was a disappointment since Max had expected it to explode. He and his machingun scanned the area but only saw undead who shambled onwards. But the crawlers kept waiting for him to reload or make a similar noise. He turned his head and saw what lay behind him:

Bonnie sat still just like she had done before. The girl with the stinger in her stomach lay unconscious. The bandage he had made to stabilise the stinger wasn't soaked with blood which was a good sign. Tara looked at him with his bolt-action rifle in hands. He knew she wanted an order, advice or anything. So he took his left hand from the mg's shoulderpiece and led the single index finger before his lips. She nodded.

He gave the area another look. The arti's were in cover and waited for them to get out of their crater. They hadn't expected the humans to have weapons. And especially not such powerfull and precise ones. He aimed at the different undead that came from the main street. A short burst fell one of them and Max saw any of the maybe half dozen of impacts on its body. One cut the right leg off, another one cut a chunk of his throat off. And the other four shredded his chest and made huge pieces of bone and flesh decorate the street behind it.

Max smiled. He was proud of his accuracy with the machingun fourtytwo. He finally didn't fail at something.

Tfrrrrr his metallic deathbringer made while throwing more lead at the walking dead. It had been a group of five undead who had stood very close and shambled in the same rythm. He moved the weapon sideways while controlling its fullautomatic hammering. All the bullets cut through flesh and he watched them being cut into pieces with morbid fascination. He had aimed at the waistline and the weapon proved its name:

The saw.

Bullets impacted mere centimeters away from each other in a long horizontal line. The bodies couldn't resist the multiply heavy blows. Flesh rit and bones broke as the bullets cut a clear line into the bodies. They were simply ripped intwo. It was like a huge sword would have cut them. The saw wasn't as 'clean' as a sword so the undead's waists or hips simply got ripped out or off.

A young woman in a thin top and jeans with bare stomach lost her waist and hips. The legs fell to the ground since they had no conection with the body. If one put the untouched upper torso upon the cut off legs it looked like the top would cover a strange midgets jeans. A thick man dropped huge parts of his guts as multiple layers of fat remained on his legs. One normal man lost only one leg and collapsed, dead.

He had walked up the craters rimm so only his left tigh had been 'cut'. The other leg remained still and stood like a cricket on the ground. The bloody stump of a shattered pelvis remained upon it. The entire group had found the ultimate death. Max was satisfied since he knew they wouldn't just keep crawling towards him and his protected ones. It was a strange fact that undead who got hit by his mg and the bolt-action died like normal people.

---

The vehicle crushed a head and Henry smiled. His hovercar sped on and he turned around for another ramming. He laughed loudly as the skull of a former young man got squished like a melon. The bloody remains decorated the cars front in a morbid red. After having bashed all undead people's heads he sped on to the mall.


	38. It goes on

Henry saw a barrier: It was a lot of cars that stood on the street in long rows. They blocked the entire street.

"Great. I bet all the other streets look like that."

The wind blew and he shivered. Nothing but a patient's gown and a huge bandage above the right eye covered his body. He felt the eyeball: It was still intact but he couldn't see anything. Pain came and rose everytime his heart made a beat. It stung even through the numbing medicine he had been given.

"Auuuhhh... stupid bitch."

Then he gave the street another look: The cars stood there like as if everyone would have run away. A few had open doors that moved among the harshly blowing wind. It was a solid barrier to normal vehicles. He didn't want to walk and searched for another street to drive through: There was none. He scoffed and thought about an alternative as his eye wandered. His car's front was covered with small bloodstains and, to his surprise, an eyeball rested on a small knob. Henry's face showed irritation as he accelerated to make it fall.

It rolled off and Henry wondered if losing eyes was a common thing: "Man what a joke. Maybe I could replace my own eye with it?"

He laughed bitterly and got an idea: The lever for height control. He set it on two meters and the vehicle slowly rose. After that he accelerated and flew over the cars.

---

"What exactly happened?" Ron asked.

"You fell into the snow and blacked out. I carried you away and those strange people came."

"Oh..." His face changed to worry: "Are you okay KP?"

"Yes I'm fine. And you can put your pants on again."

Ron looked down and noticed that he had nothing but boxers on his legs. He turned around and Kim kept watching him as he slid into the pants. She tried to keep her eyes away but couldn't make it for long. They simply moved back to his buttocks everytime. She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes but his image came to her mind: It was Ron who slowly took the shirt off his neat chest. Her eyes snapped open and saw a clothed Ron. His shirt had a few cuts at the back but that wasn't what made him look different.

What made him look different was the huge gun. He bent down, took it up and gave it a few looks. Then he pointed at the small cylinder at the weapons left side.

"Hey I think that's its clip KP."

Kim rolled her eyes. "Great Ron. Let's just hope we won't have to use it."

"Yeah... that wouldn't be cool. But if more of those people come-"

"NO one deserves to be shot Ron. Not even weird blackened people."

"But he almost shot you! And he killed those... things. And he was on that photo, too!"

Kim gave up and let her shoulders sink. Ron and her walked towards the mall as her thoughts wandered to Ron. He had used himself to press her behind safe cover. She wondered if Josh would have done the same thing for her. Or if Josh would go on missions with her. Or if Josh would stand infront of her with boxers on like as if it would be normal. She kept watching his neat butt and wondered if she had ever looked at the one of Josh. She was thankfull for that Ron had somehow got her mind back to things that were more important than his butt.

Kim shook her head quickly and walked on. The shadows around her looked a bit darker than before as she took her Kimmunicator:

"Wade?" The usual image came. "Do you know something about these blackened people?"

Wade thought for a moment. "No. I couldn't find anything on the internet except for that photo. Nothing else. Just like as if they wouldn't exist."

"What do you mean you didn't find anything? You always find something!"

Wade shrugged his shoulders. "There's always a first time. But someone wants to speak to you. I couldn't find out who it is."

"Okay. Show him."

Wade nodded and pressed a button. His picture faded and a new one came. Kim was surprised to see two red spots that stared at her. They looked somewhat similar to the ones of the strange blackened man she had met before. But something was missing, it felt like they would lack something important. The stare made her feel uneasy but it didn't create the immensely guttwisting feeling the blackened men had created.

The shape had a similar helmet and clothing. Kim could see a few details on its armour and firearm. The weapon looked shorter and not so brutal. Its armour seemed to be a little bit thinner and the mask it wore was a little rounder. The shape sat in a room that was only lightened by the 'eyelights' of itself and other shapes. Its head turned slightly and it spoke: The voice was male, distant and clear.

"Possible. We art in need of information concerning a device called Tempus Simia. Thou shalt give us information." Kim was confused because of the person's grammar. It sounded like a gothic or medieval version of english but the voice had no accent or dialect. It was perfect oxford english if one ignored the 'thou' 'art' and the other weird replacements for 'are' and 'you'. The saying was an order.

And Kim didn't like people who try to order her around.

"Who are you? I demand to-"

"Thou have nothing to demand Possible. Your life art in our debt and thou shalt pay it back."

Kim's brows furrowed. She didn't know what the person was talking about: "I don't-"

"Do not be deceived. It was not your 'computer-expert' who made our dropship take thou from the Lost."

"Stop interrupting me! And who are the Lost?" Kim barely made it to keep her voice normal. Ron came closer and his eyes widened when he saw the Kimmunicator's display.

"KP! That's the helicopter that flew us away!"

Kim gave Ron a short look and thought about his saying. It started to make sense: The helicopter, Wade's sayings and Ron who had token her from the moving black wall. It started to make some sort of sense. The darkened figure looked aside for a short moment and spoke again:

"Wade Load shalt stop to steal pictures and other information from us or he wilt be punished. We need the exact location of the Tempus Simia, a manual to use it and all other information about the device. And we want our picture back. Now."

"But-"

"Your debt shall be payed if thou obey. It does not matter if thou do it voluntearly." It was a threat.

Kim didn't like it but if these people could detect Wade in his own network they had to be powerfull. Or ultra-nerds. Kim hoped it to be the latter. She knew Wade was overhearing their conversation. And she knew that Wade could listen in because these people allowed him to listen.

"Wade give them all we have. But I have questions. Answer them and you'll get what you want."

"Thou cannot help your friend by giving him time. You wilt be granted three questions. Choose wisely." The figure's head sunk a little bit what made its look become meaner. Kim knew that most people would be intimidated by that gesture. But not Kim Possible: She was the girl that could do anything. She became angry because the blackened man had seen her trick: Not many villains were that smart. Basicly no villain att all was that smart.

"First: Who are you?" The figure shook its head. Kim looked at the area around the shape: They all sat inside a vehicle. Ron had said it would be a helicopter. That would explain why the picture kept shaking slightly from time to time. There were two rows of men that were clothed and armed like the speaker. The people looked at the men that sat on the opposite bench in of the helicopter.

There were about nineteen men. Kim couldn't hear any rotor noises. "Why are you here?"

"That art obvious. Tempus Simia." The person sounded unnerved by her questions. Kim gave the man a long and analyzing look. She didn't want to give armed men the exact locatian of a time machine. Especially not to men who seemed powerfull. Their entire bodylanguage and armament proved that they were commandos. And it seemed like they would be the elite of military people.

Kim despised the military but always kept it for herself.

"Are you relative to these blackened people with the huge machineguns? Those that can become fog?" Ron suddenly asked. Kim looked at him and his eyes. Their color was wonderfull and the depth had a beautyfull intensity. She quickly returned her look to the screen.

"No, Stoppable. "

"How come you know my name?"

"Those have been three questions. An advice: Return your families and friends to the... 'mall'. Otherwise their safety is art not guaranteed." It looked to the side and then returned its gaze upon the two teenagers. "This conversation ends now."

And with that the screen became black again until Wade's face returned: "I don't know who they are. But I'll find out."

"They spoke strangely didn't they? And that guy spoke of the mall like as if he wouldn't know what mall is. Keep me informed."

Noises came from far away: "tfrrrru... twummmm... tfrrrrru...tfrrrruu..."

Kim was about to say something but Wade was faster: "Dark Hill."

"Thanks."

Kim switched it off and looked at Ron. Rufus was on his left hand and squeqed wildly while pointing at something. Kim looked at where he pointed and saw one of the blackened men. It walked out of a small dark backyard and slowly turned its head towards them. After that it walked into their direction with a steady and slow pace. Kim wanted answers and got into a combat stance. Ron stood close behind her and held the machinegun in his hands. She gave the gun a closer look: It was fine craftsmanship and it looked menacing in Ron's hands. His slightly goofy stance didn't change that. In the hands of the person it looked like a tool of evil that was ready to end lives. The blackened man came closer.

---

"Ey I hear somethin' !"

"Yes Od I heard it too." Danny answered. "It's just weird that no one called police yet."

"Maybe hq has other cars closer?"

"No Helen. Something's not right... I just don't know what..."

"Ey you'd have heard that on the radio if they would have called another car!"

"Yes that's wrong Danny. It's not like there would be a gigantic conspiracy or something like that."

"Your bro had a different oppinion-"

"DON'T get my brother into this Danny!" She growled at her partner.

"Okay but it's just weird that-"

"We find a potential criminal and let him have his gun?"

"Ey I ain't a criminal just 'cause I've got a gun! I gotta shoot those things ya know?"

Helen lowered her head. It was a fact: That man had saved her and her partner. But she still didn't like to have an armed ganger in her car.

"So where do we go to?" Danny asked.

"To that noises. I don't care if hq hasn't send an order. We're on patrol and the station is on that way too."

"You ain't gonna put into jail for shootin' that thing!" Then he yelled: "Watch out!"

Helen turned her head to the front but it was too late: A huge manlike shape bumped into their cars front, rolled over the glass and roof and fell over the car backwards. Helen hit the brakes and the car slid over the snow until it finally stopped. No one spoke a word and uncomfortable silence spread in the vehicle. Helen knew that it could end her career if someone found out that she had an armed ganger in her car. While driving someone dead. She took a long breath and bit her lower lip.

"Miss?" Od slowly asked but Helen didn't pay him much attention. Instead she kept watching her steering wheel. Sweat began to form on her hands.

"Miss!" Danny turned around and motioned him to stay quiet by putting a finger before his lips.

"MISS! He's walking again!" Helen suddenly turned around. It seemed more than strange. Her eyes widened when she saw that the man rose to full hight. His body moved a bit left and right and his arm looked pretty mangled. In fact it stretched away from the body in an impossible angle. At least it was impossible if the arm's joint wasn't dislocated. Also a bone stretched out of the arm but the person didn't seem to mind. Instead it walked over the street. Helen gave Danny a bewildered look and got out of the car.

Od tried to to get out too but since it was a policecar the backdoors were locked from the inside. He started to yell something at Helen but her full mind was focused on the man she had almost killed. Danny got out of the car and opened a small shelve to get the first aid kit.

"Mister! My partner-"

The man turned around. He looked pale and the arm was in bad shape. His fingers were black what had come from freezings. He started to walk towards her without saying anything. Helen started to feel uneasy und her stomach growled quietly.

"Stop!" She yelled but he continued further. "Stop! Or I'll shoot!" She yelled and withdrew her pistol. The man kept on coming. Helen was in a problematic situation: She could either obey the rules and shout again or she could just shoot. She wanted to do it by the book. But she remembered the one time she hadn't shot when they had met Od.

"Plammm" Her pistol made as the man got hit right in the chest. He didn't stop or twitch even though Helen knew he should. She looked at the man in complete disbelief and fired again. He didn't stop and only a small grunt showed that he noticed the hit. Thick blood started to slowly drip from the wound. It wasn't as red and fluid as it should be. Helen fired once again. The man stood about two meters before her and she was about to fire. But he suddenly blurred forward and gripped her shoulders.

He had been way too fast and Helen hadn't expected him to suddenly be so fast. It stood in complete contrast to how he had moved before. The man dropped her to the ground by using his own weight and Helen fired wildly. The strange man suddenly raced his head up.

"Danny!"

Her partner ran towards her while drawing his own pistol when the man opened his mouth and raced his head down towards her shoulder. She couldn't move nor could she shoot because the man kept her pinned to the ground. His teeth stood in a slight disorder and stuck within a little bit rotten flesh. The stink was immense. Danny wasn't there to help her and Od couldn't get out either.

The man's eyes were nothing but empty and shallow white orbs. They lifelessly stared at her and somewhat hung within the skull's caves. A mourn came. It

She kicked and stomped and waved her arms around but it didn't get the man off her. His arms kept gripping violently into her shoulder and kept her pinned with an almost iron power. He raced down and rammed his teeth into her shoulder to bite. His foul teeth rocked over the cotton of her uniform but didn't get through until a loud bangs came.

The thing mourned and twitched as more and more and bangs came. Everytime the thing twitched a little more and Helen barely made it to throw it off sideways. She aimed her pistol at the things head and fired into the man's head. He dropped down like a sack of potatoes and stopped moving. Helen closed her eyes and rolled on her back.

Danny bent down and opened the first aid kit in his hands. It made a fine metallic noise and Helen slowly opened her eyes to see that Danny bent down to bandage her shoulder. Then she felt a sting in her shoulders. It wasn't much at all. One of the teeth had pierced the skin of her right shoulder and a small droplet of blood collected around the small hole. It wasn't much. Really not much at all. But it was enough.

Danny took a small piece of bandage and gave it to her. He turned away and motioned Od to look away. After that she unbuttoned her shirt and shoved the bandage underneath her uniform. Helen looked behind herself and saw that both Od and Danny didn't look at her, just like they should. She and the others got back into the car and Danny talked:

"We drive you to the hospital. I'll get you all antibiotics I can find."

"What? It's not that much of a hurt-"

"Do you know how many bacteria are in the human mouth? They're dangerous and I won't take any risk."

"But-"

"NO BUT Helen." Danny looked at her with a determined look. He wouldn't change his mind.

It was a surprise to see how much he was worried about the small injury. She really didn't get it. Od seemed concerned as well. But she didn't want to have their pity. The small thing started to itch slightly. She twitched when something touched the spot: It was Danny who rubbed the spot with his hand. Her eyes softened a bit as she noticed that it wasn't something or someone who wanted to attack her. She looked back to the street and moved her shoulders a bit.

She slightly mourned and snuggled her shoulder a little bit deeper into his hand. It moved closer around her shoulder and massaged the uniform and its meat underneath. It was odd to Helen but Danny seemed to exactly know what pleased her.

"Okay fine. Hospital then."

---

Liz was in panic. Bonnie kept sitting there like a numb puppet, Hanna had a quickly done bandage around her arm and everything was loud. Explosions rocked the ground, dirt flew around, loud and highpitched screams made a strange symphony with the angry moans. And the worst thing was that loud sawlike noises of the guy behind his huge gun. He kept moving his upper body left and right while the thing roamed too loud.

Tfrrrrrru-tfruuuuu-tfrrrru...

She didn't get what it all was about so she took a look over the hole's rimm: Many ill-looking people kept moving to their hole and a few strange people were there too. Somewhere down the road were pretty thick huge things with small heads at their lower left. The guy moved his head around and yelled something at her. His voice died in the noise of a huge explosion nearby. An unnerving whistle spread in her ears and forced her to sit down.

Nothing made the whistle stop and it drove her mad. It was louder than anything she had heard before and it made all the other noises die before they reached her mind. She bit her teeth and held her ears what helped a little bit. Her eyes began to tear and the moment when all the shit had begun played theater before her inner eye:

They had kept waiting for Bonnie and Tara in the dressing room for maybe an hour. The half of their team's rest had gone to the mall. One of them had hve had a car and they had wanted to see the o-boys. Liz had stayed with Hanna and Chrystal because they wanted to talk with Bonnie and Tara. And they didn't want to leave them alone because they did rather many things together.

"God I'm sick of this. I'll just call her." Hanna had said and with quick movements the connection had stood.

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. U-huh. Yeah. No actua-... yeah okay. Bye." After flipping the cellphone shut she turned back to the group.

"Bonnie said we should meet her a few blocks to the southeast near that hill-road. And she said we should hurry."

Everyone moved out of the locker room and walked out of the gym. After maybe ten minutes they stood near the street that Bonnie had named them and kept waiting.

"I'm freezing! Why can't Bonny hurry for once?" Chrystal got out while shivering.

They kept waiting for a few minutes until Bonnie, Tara and a guy came out of a small backstreet. Both girls still wore their chearleading clothes, Tara had a doctor's coat, a backpack and a rifle with herself. Bonnie looked relatively normal with an old jeans-jacketand as "skirt" and smiled as soon as she saw her friends. After a hug with Liz, Hanna and Chrystal Bonnie spoke:

"Nice to see you. Where've you been?"

"At the gym. You kinda... disappeared. We kept waiting for you." Liz answered.

"Where's the rest?"

"Went to the mall by car."

"Bonnie why do you have a jacket as skirt? And why does Tara have a gun and a doc's coat?"

"Oh..." Bonnie looked behind herself. "It's kinda cold you know."

"And what are we gonna do now?"

"We go to the mall."

Tara and Max walked closer until they were too close to be ignored. The three girls gave both of them bewildered looks before returning their eyes upon Bonnie. They always waited for Bonnie to tell them something and to give them orders. Bonnie was their captain after all.

Tara had the rifle's holding belt around her shoulder what strapped the rifle to her back. It's top stood upright behind her back and her right hand rested in the holding belt underneath her armpit. The coat remained open and covered her sides and back. She had a backpack with the rifle's loading stripes inside on her back.

Max just stood there. The machinegun's barrel rested on his right shoulder while his right hand held the weapon's pistol-grip. Its shouldergrip pointed towards the five girls before him. The left hand kept resting on the knife's holster. He kept observing the surrounding area through eyes that had deep rings underneath themselves. He uncomfortably shifted his shoulders from time to time due to his backpack's weight.

"Hi Tara!"

Tara was used to not be seen often when Bonnie was near. It was like she would be Bonnie's shadow. But it was okay. For as long as Bonnie kept seeing her everything was fine.

"Hi girls. Nice to see you."

Tara noticed the bewildered looks at her rifle and coat. She moved her hips and looked at it.

"Oh... well actually... It's mine. And the coat...errr... too."

The girls slowly nodded but none of them seemed to be convinced. It was just too weird that their best friend had a gun and a doctor's coat. Bonnie rested a hand in her hip and looked around in boredom.

"And who is... this?" Liz asked while pointing at Max who looked around with suspicous eyes. He noticed the finger that was pointed at her but remained quiet. He seemed uncomfortable but didn't do anything.

"Mister?... Hello?" She asked while bending down a bit.

"He doesn't talk much at all."

The girls gave Bonnie a strange look. "Bonnie, you've got a strange boyfriend this time-"

"He's SO NOT my boyfriend!"

Bonnie crossed her arms and made a "hmmmpf" noise. Tara seemed unnerved as well and sighed. Liz nodded and smiled: "Sure, Sure."

"And why does he have a gun? And why do you have a gun Tara?"

Tara took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Because we've met people who wanted to kill us and there were no cops around."

"You mean- Someone tried to murder you?"

"Yep."

The Cheerleaders looked at each other worriedly. Bonnie walked a few steps and Max followed suit. His backpack made slight clanking noises. Bonnie turned around and gave him a confused look. "What are you doing? Back off!"

He was visibly taken aback and made a step behind. His eyes darted around like they always did when he didn't know what to do or say. Tara shook her head and walked after Bonnie who moved over the street. The girls followed their captain without questioning. As always.

And then the strange black man had come. Liz remembered how Bonnie's friend had suddenly took his klotzy gun off the shoulder. Of how he had run towards Bonnie. It had been obvious that he had tried to stand infront of her; between her and the strange man. The picture came back of how he had raised his gun while the man had raised his left arm at Bonnie.

She remembered how Bonnie had suddenly stopped moving and how she had collapsed. The guy had started to shoot his huge gun out of the hip and the black man had been hit. The man had started to look a drawing with holes. Liz had seen a brickwall through these holes while they slowly became smaller.

A loud shreeking noise had come from the rooftops and the guy had started to yell while running towards the man. Loud whistles had started to come from the sky. 'Lie down! Stay in the craters all time and never leave them! Don't get into the crater's deepest point cause there's dangerous gas inside! Don't look over the craters rimm!' He had yelled. The man had kept standing there without moving or doing anything while his holes went smaller. It looked like a black bucket with black water that slowly got refilled.

The first explosions had rocked the street. Tara had thrown Liz down and had told her to get into the nearest hole. The other girls had kept following while the guy ran past the still lying Bonnie. Liz had seen that he had taken things from the man. These things were long but thin brown-tan tubes with thicker and slightly flat black cylinders at their tops. He took all of the things except for one.

Tara pressed Crystal and Hanna into the hole while taking the rifle from her back. The guy had unsrewed the lower tubes end, which didn't have a black cylinder, and pulled a small string out of it. Then he ran towards Bonnie and had dropped before her. The man had got 'full' again before a huge and loud explosion from its middle had made him vanish. The guy had put his huge gun underneath Bonnie's armpits and had pulled her into the hole.

And so the hell had started.

---

A.N: If the last few sentence's grammar is crappy please tell me by review.


	39. Dreams? Visions? Albert?

Kim. In a short white gown that showed the lower part of her delicious and barely covered buttocks. Kim in a sinny black dress that emphasized her wonderfull breasts. Two more of the pictures that Ron tried to keep from his mind. But it didn't work. The dress slowly vanished and was replaced by Kim in a dark bedroom. Moonlight shone through a huge window, upon the very huge bed and upon the floor before it. One of the shadows moved towards the bed that Ron lay upon.

A small tube of painnumbing medicine stood on a small desk but he didn't pay it much attention. It was morphine.

It was her. A long and thin leg slowly went forward and the moon let its light illuminate the skin. It was bare and very fine. The leg stretched further up and the small but powerfull muscles perfectly danced under the gentle skin that covered them. The light was split into four squares by the window's frame, which was a cross. Ron watched the thin black line move over her leg in absolute fascination.

The black line went upwards until it reached about two thirds of the upper leg. The movement seized to a very slow speed, slow enough to fuel his desire even more but not fast enough to make his passivity end. The foot lost contact with the ground and moved upwards. And with it the black line.

Ron saw every detail of her leg as more and more of it got visible. It felt like as if the leg would slowly grow out of the darkness, like as if it would no longer be its hostage. There was a thin bluely lit stripe between the point where her leg came out of darkness and the black moving line that was produced by the crosslike frame that held a small part of the light.

He always saw a lot of her leg, it slowly became more and more. But he could never see the entire thing. For every new sight he had to give an "old" one. His fantasy tried to replace the lost parts of her leg in the moments when they were lost, only to go the next part of her in the following moment. He didn't lose the sight, instead it was given to him and then, for just a short moment, token by the blackness.

Each and every of these moments seemed to last an eternity in his mind, and he hoped that they would never end.

It was obvious that the small and thin stripe of light would show her entire bare body before it would be stolen from him by the blackness. But even that moment of loss was only short and after it, light reigned forever. All the secrets that Kim had kept from him, even when they had switched bodies, would be revealed. He couldn't wait for it to happen.

The leg slowly became thicker and a little more muscelous. He knew what it meant: The most intimite place of the female being before him would come to light soon. The stripe of light finally came to the spot when Kim made a quick step forward. Instead of showing him what he wanted to see she denied it. Ron bit into his lower lip.

He wouldn't admit it but Kim had just raised his level of interest, desire and erection even further. He came to the thought that showing the most important things right at the beginning WAS good. But it could be even better. Thin blackness covered the spot of his desires. It seemed to cover almost the entire triangle that lay between Kim's legs and their joints.

"A girl has got to have a few secrets, right? But don't worry."

Her voice was like it had never been before: It was still hers but it was soft, seducive and very feminine. It was new but common, unheard but still familiar, known and still not known. It was a lovely contrast in it self, it was impossible but still happened. And like as if she could read his thoughts her voice, sweet as ambrose, sounded:

"I'm the girl that can do anything, remember?" She giggled, both sweetly like the girl she was and erecting like the woman she was as well.

Her hands moved behind her head as she stretched her chest forward and mourned seducivly. It sounded like as if she'd really just stretch but also like as if she wanted to mourn just for him. Ron wasn't sure what of the both was true, neither did he know if even one of the two was true. Or maybe both was right? He didn't know what to think or say. And Kim seemed to like that as her smile showed.

He couldn't see her body entirely, nor was it completely black like the room's wall behind her. He wasn't even sure if there was a wall at all. Her smile was the "little teeny" smile just as much as it was the smile of a mature and experienced woman. Once again he wasn't sure what was true and his mind began to interpret things. And just that lack of an undeniable truth, the mass of possibilities made him want her even more.

Her smile grew wider as she stepped into the full light. The leg that was on the windows side created a shadow. It was small enough to cover her intimite zone and the thin hairs above it. But it showed the beginning of the opposite one of the triangles two upper sides. The thin black line went over her breasts and covered their details, but not their rough shape. Kim put one hand upon her hip and let her tigh bend a little to the side. It made the other side of the tigh have a smaller angle. But the other looked even hotter than before.

A little bit of the lower rounding of one breast was shown, just enough to make him see it. But not for long enough. The picture, feeling and sensation of it couldn't become a full memory. His mind began to ask questions, how round was it? How much was shown?

And again his mind began to interpret things. And just that kept him focused, interested and busy. Her hair was pretty long and fell down her back, just like he had always secretely wished it to be. Her lips were covered with an erotic red gloss as she opened them. They moved just when sweetly breaking a kiss.

A kiss that was there for him. Only him.

A very soft and erotizing sound accompanied them just as very thin strays of lipfluid. The thin straws of soft fluid looked like extremely thin pillars that shattered more and more the further her lips spread. A soft smile formed as her tounge licked over the lips and a faint, almost unhearable and wonderfully sweet noise heralded the taking in of air.

"Do you wish to sleep?"

She sweetly asked. Her voice was like ambrosia, gently bitter and desirable. He couldn't say anything, do anything or otherwise react. His lip began to slightly bleed but he didn't want to stop biting it. A very certain someone would carefully kiss them to sooth his pain. He couldn't withstand it, nor could he stop it.

"RON!"

Her voice came from somewhere else, far away. Strangewise her lips hadn't moved and the eyes showed a mild irritation. It didn't really fit into the entire picture. His entire body cooked more and more as his breathing increased. Everything radiated an intense heat: Kim, the room, the bed, his own body, the small dose of painkillers that stood subtly in the background.

His hands clawed into the blanket to somehow cope with the immensely growing feeling inside him. He felt like as if his entire body would explode, combust or implode into a rain of positive emotions. He wanted to just say yes, mourn or yell but he couldn't.

"RON!"

Kim released the hand from her hip and looked surprised. "Do you wish to sleep?"

It was almost an order or demand. But Ron didn't pay any attention. The feeling was way too intense. He started to press air out of himself in huge mournlike breaths as his chest rose among his lungs.

His entire body worked towards a sudden explosive end, a gigantic release of stowed stress, anger and hate. And of a certain bodyfluid. He kept on yelling louder and louder until something packed his shoulders. Suddenly the room vanished and a flash blinded him. He sat on a bench, Kim bent over him and kept shaking his shoulders while his lungs were pumping hard.

"Oh god Ron I thought-" She stated a little bit shocked but suddenly stopped. Her voice became very worried and she tilted her head:

"- Did you have a nightmare?"

"HUUUH!" Was the only thing he could say or otherwise bring out. He fought against the feeling. It would be THE embarassment. Doing something like that would be the most disgusting thing that he could think of. Kim came a little closer but he quickly shook his head. It made her go away from him. Just as he had wanted it to be.

Ron sat down on the ground and he didn't know how much time passed until he got "normal" again.

"KP? I gotta check something could you maybe-"

"Oh! Yes of course." She interrupted him and turned around. It was odd, but sometimes an almost mindreading friendship could be usefull. Ron looked at her for a few seconds to see if she really didn't try to look. After that he turned away and unbuckled his pants. He kept watching Kim while doing so and saw that she didn't hear it. Any movement would have given her away.

He slowly gripped the pant's belt and shoved it away from his body. His lips quivered as his eyes slowly made a little peek. The pants were still dry. He breathed out in high relaxation: For once he hadn't made something idiotic. He closed his pants and turned around. They started to walk down a small street until Kim broke the silence.

"So..." Her curiousness got the better of her. _"Sorry I dreamt of having sex with you." _Wouldn't be helpfull. So Ron did something he rarely did:

He lied.

"I thought Rufus might be hurt from all my moving around and I didn't want you to see... nasty things."

Kim seemed to take the bait: She rolled her eyes. "Oh please! I'm old enough for that AND a doctor's daughter!"

Ron was thankfull for that she forgot the first question of what he had dreamt of by thinking about his reason for privacy.

They both giggled a little but suddenly stopped when they heard the noises again. They were pretty close. Both ran towards a street where the noises eccoed from. Kim stopped at a house's corner and listened intently. She didn't notice that Ron fought to not stare at her butt. It was very hard for him. If she walked slowly her butt moved wonderfully slow and rythmically. It was like a bait that he couldn't ignore.

The soft cheeks of her legs highest part neatly fitted into her pants. It was the very first time that Ron noticed it at all. Of course he had looked at it sometimes. But it had been when he was looking around. Or when her butt was between what he wanted to see and his current eye's focussing point. But they had quickly brished the delicate forms away, had ignored the rythmically up and down and hadn't paid attention to how neatly her pants fitted on the skin.

Kim looked around the corner and her brows furrowed what rarely happened. She came back and got her kimmunicator.

"What is it KP?" Ron asked while she activated the small and handy device.

"Those blackened people who want the tempus simia."

Ron looked around the corner. There were about one dozen of the blackened men. They stood infront of an old warehouse. They all wore the same tubed gasmasks and armour-dress-like clothing. It was some sort of military dress with a bulletproof material around the torso, legs and arms. It didn't look like armour but like a battledress because of the unbulky way they were webbed into the cloth.

About eight of them sat or lay infront of the buildings entrance. Sandbags were thrown up infront of it to create small protective walls for the people to hide. And there were the red lights infront of hidden eyes. But they were somewhat different than the other blackened men. The helmest and masks were the same, just as the rough shape. But they looked way less bulky and moved pretty agile.

Two of the men were setting up gunlike devices: They looked like a tripod-mounted machinegun with a small round scopelike camera. A thin tube, almost the same as the gasmask's ones, went to somewhere within the firearm. A third man was supervising the setup and one of the two others stood up. He ran to his supervisor and began to speak something that Ron couldn't understand. It was foreign.

"Kp they don't speak english! Can't Wade make a translator?"

Wade spoke, as on queue, from his device: "Already done. And I'm scanning the persons and their gear too."

The device beeped as the man snapped his legs and feet together and saluted infront of his superiour.

"Reporting obeyingly: The Yohann-machinespirits are pleased and set Mister Kommandant."

"Set an Ahnton-pattern on the roof and prepare an Eeda-defence line. Doubled Yohann-patterns must see everything in Tsvo- three radius."

"Yawoll Mister Kommandant!" The man replied and walked into the house. The other men kept digging holes into the snow and earth of the building's front-yard. It wasn't cemented. Two more were putting barbed wire in a half circle with the entrance door as its middle and the building's walls as its ends. The strange tripods were on platforms and could easily see any spot infront of the house.

"Tsvo?" Ron asked to no on in particular. "And what is a Yohann-pattern?"

Kim made a shh noise and looked at six men who quickly walked out of the building. They had small grey bags in their hands. She knew what these bags where: Satchel charges, very powerfull plastic explosives.

"They are gonna blow the buildings around us!" Ron stated what she thought. As often. Not always, but often.

The strange sentryguns looked like Ron's new weapon on a tripod. The "Kommandant" raised his left arm. The fist stopped about one foot above his head. Then it began to dimnish, it became a little bit blacker than before and stood still. After that the man opened his fist and something happened to the tripodmounted weapons. Their scope's empty and dull reflection of light seized. Kim looked closer:

The scopes seemed to suddenly became absolutely pitchblack. It felt and looked like as if any light would be absorbed by the blackness behind the small cylinder of plasti-glass and black plastic. And Kim started to hear something. It was nothing she had heard before but it came close to whispering. She heard noises, heavilly stretched into roughly the shapes of voices. And they whispered.

"What is thi- Umm!"

Ron couldn't finish his sentence since Kim pressed a finger on his lips. It was almost like as if the voises would be somewhere but still they weren't. They could be heard but were somehow inaudible. And, somehow, they said something even though it was nothing at the same time. It was allways something, but still it was nothing. It wasn't there but was there. It was a contrast.

"Wade what did you find out?"

"The suits they wear are some sort of soldiers's uniforms. They cover the entire body like hazardsuits but are thin enough to be standard uniforms. It seems to have some sort of nano-exoscelletan innards underneath the first layer but..."

"But what?" Wade looked a little but puzzled but went on. Kim felt that he kept to something he knew.

"They're armed with hightech firearms and... bayonetts. And strangely their standart weapon, a leightweight bullpop assault rifle, has an underslung one-round shotgun and a bayonett."

Kim gave him a bewildered look but it was true: Most of the blackened men had rifles on their backs. A long knife that could be held alone stuck out of their front ends. Its grip stck in a small hole between the small shotguns and the main barrels end. It was a disturbing sight. A cylinder, which was the clip, was the biggest part of the weapons shoulderpiece. Then came a pistollike grip. Above that grip was a box whose corners were rounded into barely a circle. Within that block was a small red tube which was a smalltime scope.

"And what means 'bullpop'?"

"A new trend in the construction of firearms. The clip is behind the trigger. The rifle is shorter and lighter with the same or better accuracy. I'll send you a picture."

A picture of a somewhat futuristic weapon appeared. It was labelled "Steyr Aug". Kim didn't like to look at it. It was a gun after all. And guns were manufactured for one single purpose: Kill. Ron looked over her shoulder and saw the picture. He made a quiet acknowledging whistle.

"Ron that isn't cool! Guns take away everything and everyone you love! They can only bring misery and pain to people."

While Kim gave her friend a whispered ranting about how bad guns were Rufus came out of his little hideout. He yawned and stretched but suddenly stopped when he felt something. It was, obviously, cold outside but it was way too cold. He started to shiver heavily as his teeth began to snap against each other. His little arms tried to grab and hold the warmth that was literally sucked out of him but failed.

It wasn't just cold. It was unnaterly cold, like as if someone would have stolen all warmth from the sky around him.

A noise came, it was like when someone takes a breath in or out and makes a really ghostly sound with it. It sounded like an almost whispered "haaaaa...". And aura of cold established around a place behind a huge garbage ban. The shadow that it created got darker and darker until there was nothing to be seen anymore. No details from the wall, no materail that could normally be seen and even the shadow itself were consumed by that new form of blackness.

And the small pit of blackness started to spread over the the bin's edge. It slowly crawled over the wall and swallowed it whole. Rufus took a part of Ron's shirt and pulled heavily at it but nothing happened. The form stretched over the wall and upon another binn. Blackness consumed, ate or otherwise destroyed the bin and crawled over a small bottle of booze that lay infront of it.

Rufus squealed loudly but Ron only patted him with a hand. The blackness stood still but somehow moved within itself, just like a pool of water could have stormy waves. Invisible waves, sheltered by the darkness that produced them, protected by invisible powers and heralded by nothing but deep raw instincts.

Rufus couldn't see or hear the blackness. He saw how everything was somehow covered by black stuff, maybe pitchblack thin oil. But oil would drip from what it covered. Oil wouldn't be so fluent and continuoes in its spreading. And oil had to care about gravity, it couldn't just climb upwards on a wall. Again he squealed but Ron only cared for Kim's rant.

Or at least pretended to care. Sometimes even Kim Possible could be a pain in the ass. Sometimes. Rufus knew that something was wrong. Something elemental and too subtle to describe told him so. Kim and Ron stood with their flanks towards the consumed wall and were only caring about themselves. They wouldn't notice until it was too late.

Something else caught his attention: It was noises, sounds, so unhearable and faint that they couldn't be separated. It was like as if many people whispereded together. It was too uncoordinated for a chorus but too intense to be a coincedince. A bizarre power, or maybe the lack of the such, lay within whatever that blackness was.

Again the blackness moved and, as Rufus interpreted it, retreated. He sighed and wiped sweat from his brow. Kim's body language got more and more aggressive but she didn't seem to notice. Ron's tapping of Rufus headbecame harder, the hand came pressed a little more everytime it came down but Ron didn't care. Or he didn't notice. Kim's choice of words got nastier and her voice became angry.

And Rufus believed to know why: The blackness took shape: It withdrew from the ground like as if it would have never touched it and slowly collected infront of the wall. After that it started to grow in to the air. And while it did so the whisperings got louder. Their voices became less random and seemingly tried to form into one voice. A voice that tried to tell him something.

The blackness formed into an almost personlike pillar and stopped. The voices became louder and clearer but were still to strange to distinguish them from useless brabbling. The black pillar somehow became more and more black. Rufus' eyes delievered less information while it became something more, or maybe less, than black. It was like as if there was nothing more too see, like as if the blackness itself had left an empty void behind.

A void that would soon be filled.

---

"Whow your bit! Oh shit you'll become of them!" Od yelled at the female cop in front of him.

"What? No way I'll not-"

"Ey Mister didn't ya see all the zombie movies? Bitten people always turn into what bit them!" The blackskinned young man spoke to Danny, intentionally ignoring Helen's statement.

"Od this isn't a movie-"

"So what? I saw some strange spider-insect thing bigger than this car kill half of my hood! And then that black dude comes up-"

"SHUT up!" Helen yelled. There was silence. She didn't want to hear anymore backtalk.

"You know that mouthbacteria is very agressive? A man got his arm amputated because he didn't get treated fast enough. And the injury is pretty close to your main artery."

She gave her partner a mean look. He always talked back for as long as he thought to be right.

"We're already driving to the hosp' so shut up."

All two men were quiet. There was nothing more necessary to be said.

---

Dr. Director, aka Betty, walked into an empty office with her strange companion. She still wondered about how a man could walk around in a firefighter's pants shirt when it was winter. A look upon her own clothing didn't show any better: She wore his sweater and jacket together with her usual pants. It looked ridiciulous. But Betty tried her best to see the practical side of things, as always: She didn't freeze.

What she really couldn't put in order was what had happened between her and the man known as Albert Ratting. It was beyond any good reason to just hop into a bed and seduce a married man. Especially for women like her who were serious about work, other people and most important: Themselves. Betty always put a strict border between personal and workrelated things. And personal wasn't that much.

What irritated her the most was his odd behaviour. And the fact that she was taking a civilian with her on a mission. He kept being quiet and serious when she wanted him to be quiet. It was like as if he could feel or interpret her mood. And when that wasn't the given case he made stupid jokes.

"Hey you already shot someone dead?"

She gave him a look. "Yes and it wasn't nice but that's not important now."

"So you shot someone who was already dead? You're weird."

Albert smiled his stupid grin. Betty turned around to give him a lecture. "NO you are weird Albert. And now be quiet."

His grin got wider. "It's Mister Ratting remember? We wanna stay serious."

"You... " Her arms shivered from anger at his moronic behaviour. He insulted her of not being serious by being unserious himself. And he made her lose her temper. Betty was unnerved but saw at least one positive side: There were no people to notice her loss of concentration.

"Be quiet! And don't you dare do that when there are people around us!" It wasn't a growl but her voice was more agressive than she had wanted it to be. It was odd. The strange firefighter made her react in the most random and/or intense ways.

"So you want me to do it. But only when we're alone!" He stated with a satisfied grin. It grew wider when he noticed her angry stare.

"SHUT UP!" She suddenly yelled and was surprised at herself. Not only had she yelled, she had lost her self-control as well. And that in front of a subordinate. Even if it was an unofficial one. Her stance was clearly aggressive and her breathing was harsh. Her arms shivered from rage and her healthy eye narrowed in an intimidating way.

Albert changed immediatly. His face showed worry and concern when he slightly tilted his head to give her an analyzing look.

"I thought you'd take it playfull, Betty. I didn't want to embarass or hurt you. Sorry about that."

Betty was surprised. Not about the fact that he tried to stop her. Neither his apology. She had expected him to try to unwind from her wrath like bullies always do when they encountered someone stronger. When they tried to escape their punishment. But his apology sounded honorst, like as if he was sorry and didn't just pretend to be.

She turned around and grumbled quietly when something touched her stomach. Training kicked in and the potential agressor flew over her shoulder. A huge woodmade desk collapsed under the weight of a fully grown man. Betty remained in her combat stance for a few moments when she realised one thing: It had been Albert.

She wanted to help him up but her training kept her from it. Her mind started to plot for any worst-case scenario: Albert with a snapped neck, Albert with broken ribs, Albert with a huge metal tube sticking out of his chest. Her hands reached forward but suddenly stopped.

It was the perfect opportunity for an ambush. He could, still, just pretend to be the strange firefighter. Who knew if he wasn't an enemy? Was there a guaranty for that he wasn't hired to kill her? She was GJ's boss and with that a very good target for many powerfull people. And the blackened man in the cafeteria had already murdered half of her team. And the other half wasn't with her.

She got back to her stance and waited for noises, movements of vibrations. But none, except for a few mourns from Albert, came. She pitied him but he should have known that surprising someone of her state would end in a beating. Law enforcement wasn't something to mess with after all. Albert slowly got up while rubbing his forehead.

"Albert? Why did you do that?"

"I wanted to hug you, rub your shoulders and kiss you. Ohhhhh..."

It was an odd statement but it could be a cover for something worse. And someone who could take such a "stunt" with only mourning a bit was suspicious. Especially when he could speak clearly after such a blow. Betty slowly started to ease but remained cautios:

"And why did you want to do that?"

He stood between the two collapsed halfs of the table and threw his head upon the shoulders. It made sickening crunches that made Betty's skin shiver.

"Rubbing shoulders is a good stress release. And since I caused that stress I could show you that I learned my lesson AND help you ease."

He suddenly tilted his head aside and then rotated it in a full circle. His bones cracked and knacked in loud nasty noises. Betty didn't want to admit it but she was frightened of him doing so. He slowly turned around and looked her into the eyes. There was no surprise or anger in his face when he saw Betty standing there with her hands raised against him. He didn't bother that she narrowed her healthy eye.

"I'll keep quiet then. And..." He looked away after saying it. Betty didn't see that he hid something from her.

"I know I'm not one of your super-duper mega agent people but I've been with the army for some time. That should compensate a little..."

Betty got out of her stance and analyzed him sharply. What he said was a contrast: He should have known that getting at someone like her from behind would trigger something. On the other hand he was a strange joke-making man. It didn't fit together. She wanted an answer for questions on her mind. And there were many. But she'd have to keep with one for the start.

"How do you wanna know what could release my stress?"

Albert raised his right hand and stretched his fingers. There was a ring on one of them. A wedding ring. Betty gave it a short look and then returned to stare at him. No matter how much she looked she couldn't find anything that fit. She couldn't put him into a certain type of person. In all the years she had learned that men and women always fit into an at least rough guess or profile.

But Albert was too odd. Parts of his behaviour spoke for one type while other parts spoke for another. He had many parts of different profiles but none of them was dominant over the others. He created a new, contrasting, self defying and odd profile that she didn't have a name for. She couldn't put him in order. And that unsettled her.

What unsettled her even more was how easily that man could summon feelings in her. He had been an idiot and it made her desire him, then he had been an idiot and she had yelled at him. Betty was confused about the person known as Albert Ratting. He seemed to understand secrets but couldn't see elemental things. And in the next moment it was reverse. It was odd and it didn't fit. Something was wrong.

And she didn't know what. That was unnerving but not the problem. The bad thing was that she didn't if whatever was wrong could make him become dangerous. She knew that people with flaws were no problem. But if something elemental broke down...

"That was hard...almost like in the army..." He shivered a little bit and Betty knew it wasn't because of the cold. His eyes got a frightened and glassy touch for a moment but it was gone before she could put it in order.

"Ummm... Should we go on now? Or are you still hurt?"

She didn't answer and walked towards a door. They were in a small room with a reception that was part of a wall. There was a small glasscovered opening with a muchsaying "Reception" sign that hung above the indoor window. She gave it a short look while Albert started to speak again. He sounded a little bit insecure.

"Are you still mad at me? I mean I'd like to talk this out now. And I'm not gonna be a dumb-o anymore. I promise!"

Betty responded with an emotionless stare before walking towards the door. To her surprise he didn't follow her but talked again.

"Betty wait! I'm sorry, really!"

When the one-eyed lady turned around she saw a different person: Albert looked frightened of something. His hands stood somewhere close to his ribcage and their index fingers nervously tapped against each other again and again. The head was slightly tilted to the side and his eyes looked at her with a nervous and confused touch.

It was odd: The man that had lit a desire in her like a fire the night suddenly looked like a frightened child. In the first moment he had been a somewhat absend-minded but caring idiot, then he had been an outstanding lover. After that he had masterly mocked her and then he had taken a serious blow without wincing. Then he had been an allknowing and caring grown-up. It was like as if he wouldn't know what to do.

Or like as if he wouldn't know who to be.

"What-"

"Y-You know we can talk this out! Just don't go away, please!" Betty noticed that he had the same glassy touch in his eyes. It was more intense than the time before and didn't go away.

"Albert I didn't think it was necessary to talk about this."

Albert's eyes showed evenmore fright and they almost relfected something: A picture. It was like something would play upon his eyes like a movie plays on a cinema's wall. But she couldn't make out any details. She dismissed it as nothing but the strange glassy effect. Then it hit her: He thought she'd abandon him for his mistake.

"Albert you surprised me from behind and that triggered my training. I didn't know it was you. You're not a dumb-o and I didn't punish you for touching me."

"So... you're not... angry at me?"

She wanted to sigh but knew that he would take it the wrong way. "I'm not mad at you."

"Oh... I just thought... you know- " Betty noticed that he was at a loss of words. His eyes darted around like as if they woere searching for something to use as word or for concentration. "-that you'd be pissed and that you'd ignore me and that you wouldn't want to have me with you anymore... I-I mean you looked at me so... so... uninterested and like you wouldn't care about me being sorry and... stuff."

The glare. It must have been the emotionless glare that she had given him. Everyone around her knew that she always gave that look to someone when sayings or actions were either not necessary or stupid. But only her parents knew that she gave that glare to someone when she couldn't get a satisfieing analyzis.

And only Betty knew that she looked at someone that way when she didn't know what to do. When she was insecure.

A voice came. It was the one of her old tutor: _"Always think about what impression you give to the people you talk to." _It said. She slowly got why Albert was frightened: Men didn't like to be abandoned or ignored when they talked about feelings and/or wanted to apologise. And he had interpreted her actions as being ingored. She mentally slapped her mental forehead. Sometimes her actions could easily be misunderstood.

"I didn't ignore you I just couldn't make sense out of your behaviour. And I always look at someone that way when I think that something isn't important."

Albert bit his lower lip. She realised that the last sentence was a badly said one. He'd think that she thought of HIM as not important.

"I thought the 'hurt-mock-sorry' topic had been finished and that you knew that I wasn't mad at you anymore. The things between us ARE important but not as urgent as the task we have. I DO value your company. Think about how I'd react if you want to do something to me, okay? Then you won't accidently make me angry, I won't yell at you and none of us will get stressed or hurt."

Betty was proud of herself. Once again she had solved a problematic topic with nothing but words. It had been a good decision to read many books about psychology and taking lessons about rethoric. Albert eased visibly and lowered his hands.

"Oh. Okay then."

She opened the door and looked into the corridor behind it. They would look for the security room and try to look through the buildings cameras. It was a good and simple plan. Simple enough to be idiot proof. Simple enough to not fail. But one of Murphy's laws says that everything can go wrong.


	40. Ignorance and the sacrifices it creates

Hello dear Readers. I'd apreciate reviews about my writing style and stuff. A few suggestions about the story would be apreciated as well. Should I write less detailed? I intended to write this in a booklike length. I don't own Kim Possible and I don't own anything that's somehow mentioned in this story.

---

It was black. And it was cold. Did she feel the cold or was it an illusion? Was there a cold that could be felt? Bonnie didn't know the answer.

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

No response came. The cold became intenser and Bonnie started to shiver heavily. It didn't really feel like shivering. And when she put the arms around herself it didn't even feel like touching her own body. There was barely a feeling at all. It felt like the feeling of cold would simply leave her.

"Geez! Can't someone turn the lights on?"

No response came. The cold slowly lost its iron grip and Bonnie let her arms sink down. But Bonnie didn't warm up or had a blanket. Instead the cold was still there but wasn't felt anymore. It simply left. With the cold gone away Bonnie wanted to walk around.

"Why am I still shivering? God this place is weird."

Without a real reason Bonnie kept on shivering. A disturbing fact was that there was no light at all. There were no lights, no fires and not even a flashlight. She couldn't see her own body. And there was barely a feeling of her body. If there was any at all.

"Liz? Tara? Chrystal? Is anyone here?"

Once again there was no response. No one answered and nothing moved. Nothing could be heard and nothing was there. It was an empty void, empty except for her. Bonnie started to feel uncomfy. She hated being alone in unknown places. It made her vulnerable. Being alone was not a problem but wherever she was shouldn't be entered alone.

It shouldn't be entered at all. If there was a way of entering. Entering didn't exist so one couldn't enter. Or could one? Could she enter?

"I'm leaving. Stupid freaks." Bonnie mumbled to herself. Her voice was strange. It was somehow thinner than normal and didn't really make a noise. Did noises exist? Did she exist? Was her voice still there? She neither knew the questions nor the answers. And the truth about the place she was in was unknown. If it could be known at all. If it could be called a place.

Bonnie didn't know where she was nor did she know if she "was" at all.

A brief feeling twitched somewhere inside her: She wondered if her eyes were shut or if there was Nothing too see. She tried to open her eyes but failed because of one reason: She couldn't feel her eyes, couldn't sense if they wee shut, open or if they moved at all. Bonnie tried to open them again and again but failed. And slowly the urge to open her eyes vanished. It vanished into Nothing.

"If someone drugged me that someone's in deep trouble soon..." The growl brought no answer. Nothing moved, Nothing made a noise and Nothing was around her. It was odd. But not the stupidly odd way of odd. Bonnie couldn't hear anything, not even her own breathing reached the ears.

"HEY! COME OUT! ANYONE!"

As she yelled only the vibration of the words within was feelable. The rest vanished into the blackness around her. No sound, no noises and no... anything. It was like as if the words had never been spoken. It felt like as if something would swallow them even before they left her mouth. It was like as if sound didn't exist.

The first word had been rather feelable but as her saying continued the feeling seized. The vibrations at the end became nothing but a weak copy of the first ones. And even they hadn't been especially good. They simply weren't there anymore. They seized being there when used. It was like with a glass of water: One could only drink as much as was there. What had been drunk was gone forever. And if one didn't refill it in time it got empty.

And in that case she was the glass that someone drunk from. And that someone didn't want to refill her.

---

Blackness. Nothing but pure blackness moved towards them. Blackness if form of a tall man. But none of the both wanted to see it. None of them was willing. They had the ability, skill and power to look. And maybe they were even still able to react properly. Maybe.

But reactions could only arise if one noticed the action. And that wasn't the given case. The only one who noticed what was going on was Rufus. He squealed again but Ron just kept patting his head. But that wouldn't help his two little humans. The girl was too busy with appearantly practising for a theater play. And his master was too busy with pretending to listen to her.

Rufus saw how the wall above them started to go black. His eyes widened at the thought of the garbage pin. It had simply been eaten by the blackness. Then he noticed that something else moved. It was a cluster of things. And they had something in common with that blackness. Rufus jumped out of his little pocket and saw what was somehow similar to what was about to consume his friends:

The group of greyly-blackened people ran towards a building.

---

"Betty wait a moment!"

The said person turned around to see her favourite firefighter fiddling around with sunglasses. He put them on, stroke his hair flat and pointed at the door while taking a dubious stance.

"Don't open that door!"

Betty gave him a confused look while he stood still for a few seconds. She didn't get the hint. Albert grumbled and put the shades back to their place on the reception's small desk. He looked disappointed.

"Don't tell me you don't know that saying! Everyone knows that saying!"

"No, sorry. Were you imitating someone?"

"Yeah!" He kept waiting for a moment and then began to turn his hand in a circle. Together with that he moved his upper body forward and backwards among the circlings rythm. Betty kept looking at him without moving like she always did. After a few moments he gave her a hint:

"Okay it's a video game." She didn't react so he gave her one more: "It's about the same topic as our little 'adventure' ."

"And that is?"

Albert didn't get that she didn't know what to do or say: "Okay he's got my name, blond hair and he's a bad guy!"

Betty slowly shook her head. He let his head drop down and sighed. Then he went to the door with his rifle ready.

"Watch and learn!"

Betty put her hands into the hips and gave him an offended look. He slowly turned the knob until the lock fully opened and gave it a little shove. It turned towards them and Albert made a quick jump backwards. Before she could say or do anything the door burst open and someone came out of it. The person had an axelike thing in its hand and his eyes had a bloodred point within the iris.

It had been waiting behind the door since the axe came down into the frame when the door opened. It had kept waiting for a short moment. Just the moment that it took someone to step through the open door. And Betty knew that someone didn't have any room for evading. The frame was left and right, the person in front of the person and other people behind. It was the perfect trap.

And Betty knew that she would have fallen for that trap.

Of course she would have opened the door swatlike: Always one little bit at a time while peeking through the small gap between the door and its wall. But it must have been waiting neatly pressed into the wall beside the door. In an angle that one could only see by entering the room. She would have fallen for the trick.

The axe came down exactly in the middle where the victim's head would have been. But Albert was beyond that. The person tried to stop the moving arm and axe but tripped forward instead. It barely kept itself from falling and made a step forward. While doing so it got its body back to full stance.

And then there was a monstrous but short bang and its head made a few VERY unhealthy noises. The man's head was pressed towards the wall with amazing power. It's one side, where the bullet impacted first, made a disgusting crunch but that was it. No blood, no guts, no brain. Just a relatively small hole. At least in the nanosecond of and after its entry.

Betty saw a perfect reflection of the man's body's reaction: First there was nothing but the redish glow behind the iris, then came surprisement, after that a small hint of erection came, certainly because of seeing a such beautyfull woman like her. What bothered Betty the most was the leaving red glow. It vanished more and more the further the bullet went. She didn't know why but she pitied that person.

She tilted her head among the man's one for a reason that wasn't known. All life left his eyes and body before he could even feel what had happened: The bullet was faster than the nerves and their signal: The bullet was already somewhere in the middle of its head when the nerves next to the entry site send the signal of penetration.

The bullet had a gigantic advantage because of the signal's delay but even without that it wouldn't have won against the bullet. It was simply too fast. And it already destroyed the place of arrival for the signal before it could arrive. But the signal didn't lose its hope: Instead of giving up and ripping apart like its fellow nerves it kept on moving.

The brave signal was like an old locomotive: It had to compete against a new electrical train. It's boiler needed time to heat up while the electro could already make the first meters. And when the old yeller finally started the tracks had already been destroyed by the mean electro in a hope of secure victory.

Betty really didn't know why she had such an interest in another persons death. Even if it attacked her and Albert it didn't deserve such a fate. And she didn't understand why time was slowed down so much in just that moment. There had been many moments that should have lasted longer. Especially moment that involved a very ceartain firefighter should really have lasted longer.

The "train" didn't stop doing it's duty: It simply repeated its task and rode on even though the tracks it rode upon were already destroyed. It had a certain brave but stupid tenaciousness, it had the lolyalty stupor. The signal didn't get that it didn't have to do its work anymore. That someone made it obsolete. It didn't know that it#s loyalty was no longer needed. But how should it? It was just an automated nerve's impulse.

But even such a brave act of selfsacrifice was in vain: The signal somehow fought its way through splattering strains, destroyed brainmatter and spraying fluid. But it didn't arrive in time even with that act overhuman loyalty and competence. No one had helped it, no one had gave it direction and it still made its way. But it was in vain.

The man died before realizing that he died. And in the moment before his end, in the second before the door of life was shut the man got something back. Something that had been drained or stolen for a long time:

It regained its stolen emotions for a moment to small to be measured by humans, only to lose them forever. Betty was immensly saddened by that fact and she pitied the poor man. It got something back only to lose it once more. Something barely lifted her mind: She felt like as if something could help that person. So Betty held the gaze into the man's eyes.

For the last moment there was nothing but fear and sadness inside the eyes. They were somehow unseeable but feelable. Betty gave it a reassuring look but the person didn't calm. Instead it's fear and sadness grew further. Betty realized that emotions didn't need nerve-tracks, biotransmitters and nerves: They were part of a persons soul.

She felt that her look somehow helped the person with dying; the thought was strange, cynic but still true. Betty found out that persons needed someone to help them dying properly. The only problem was that she didn't know what properly meant. Was it a cynic joke, an esoteric experience or just the feeling of not having to go unnoticed? To go unseen, unheard and unhelped? Or did he like to feel her pitying him?

Somehow her look helped the person while dying: It didn't make the man except his end, instead it made it easier for him to let go in time. She gave him guidance, she was a torch in the noght and the only lighthouse near a dark and rifted coast. And as life left his eyes and body Betty felt peace. It was like as if she helped him leaving his body without problems or something alike.

His head moved sideways down towards where the bullet had come from while the shoulder moved upwards. And shortly before they connected Betty saw the bullet leave the head. It went out of the head like as if nothing would have happened. It was covered in a few thin and almost unseeable strays of pinkish fluid while it flew further, seemingly unimpressed by the head that had been in its way.

A small shower of blood followed the bullet until it's middle was out of the head. Then its end followed and a small circular spray of blood followed. It splatshed against the wall in a perfect circle and stayed there. After that the bullet's end left and with it the skulls integrity. More things flew after the bullet. It looked like a star fleeing from overzealous groupies.

His head opened in a wide angle: The part above its eyesockets moved upwards like a lever, with the entrypoint as its lower end. The lower part moved into the opposite direction; It looked like a book that is being opened. But it stood upright an was split open to both sides. Then one only had to take the ground where it stod upon and turn it upright. When someone stretched his arm out the ground was the standing body and the arm was the lever.

Then time got back to normal: The man smashed into the wall, his brainstuff splatshed against the wall and got squished when the opened head jerked back, his lifeless body twitched heavily and dropped to the ground. Her eyes followed the entire happening with a strange fascination.

When his body seized moving Betty looked up. Albert had the rifle in his hands and ejected the old shell while walking towards her.

"Sorry Betty I thought he'd trip and fall..."

"No problem I'm... trained for this."

Albert put his arms around her and she did the same.

"I just hope you won't have to get used to it." He quietly whispered while closing his eyes. Betty didn't see that tears ran down his cheeks.

---

Liz stared at the guy infront of her: He seemed to be used to everything. The gun always made the same noise: Krrrr krrrr krrrr again and again. Her head was about to combust while she watched him shoot. If she closed her eyes the sounds got louder and not even putting her hands over the ears helped. It was all a very big mess. And Bonnie being numb like hell, Chrystal being shot and Hanna having a bleeding arm didn't help.

She pressed her eyes shut but it didn't stop. There were still the disgusting sounds that came among the gunfire: Sounds of something ripping and sometimes someone cried. Liz felt that tears ran down her cheeks while her hearing slowly came back. It even got better than before.

His shoulder didn't twitch much but Liz could see any single blow that his gun gave him. She could see his back and legs while he lay in the crater. The rythm of his gun kept hamering into her mind. Then Tara came to her: She smiled and put her arms around Liz's back. It felt wonderfully warm and soft. Tara smiled warmly and her eyes showed nothing but care and friendlyness.

Liz put her head on Tara's shoulder and closed her eyes. Fingers began to stroke her hair, gentle, soft and caring. Her entire body grew warm and Tara came closer to her friend. Liz felt her arms moving over Tara's back and her hands found rest on it.

She found rest in her friend.

Liz's blond friend began to hum a melody that Liz knew very well: She had heard the melody everytime when her mother had sung her into sleep. Tara sweetly moved her body sideways and Liz moved among. Everything bad left and memorys of better days came up. Tara was warm and a total contrast to the cold around her. Her soft shaking overshadowed the beatings her body took everytime an explosion came and her close touch named the lonelyness a liar. But the most comforting thing was the melody.

It pressed the firing, the shrieks, the bangs and the crys far away. Liz fully and completely gave herself away to Tara's care and tenderness. For one short moment she felt shielded, guarded and as if nothing on this entire world , and could, harm her. All bad things were forced away by the blond angel. And for a short moment Liz was really happy. But unfortunately all happyness must end.

Tara slowly released her hug. Soft hands moved away and undernath Liz's armpits until they rested upon her shoulders. Tara's face was very close as Liz opened her eyes and looked into the ones of a blond angel. There was infinite warmth within them, care with no borders and a will to sacrifice very much to help. The young girl had eyes that any person would want to look into for a very long time.

And in that moment Liz fell in love.

Not into the romantic sort with kissing, romance and sex. It was the rarely known and true sort of Love. It was trust that was so elemental, personnal and without question that it was only comparable to love. And in most cases not even couples had a such deep bond. And Liz began to understand why and how Ron and Kim could be so close to each other without dating.

Tara closed her eyes and opened her lips a very little bit. Liz blushed and was about to pull back when Tara's head went higher than her lips. She was still very tensed when Tara's lips made contact with her forehead and stayed for a short moment. All tension simply vanished as Liz let a small sigh escape her lips.

Tara then put both hands upon Liz's cheeks and carefully rubbed away a pair of fresh tears.

"We'll make it out of this. I promise!" The blonde young lady spoke before slowly releasing her friend and sitting down beside Hanna and infront of the still lying Chrystal. She put Chrystal's head upon her lap and an arm on Hanna's hip. Hanna looked up and into Tara's face. After that she started smiling when Tara carefully stroke her body. Then Liz looked around and saw someone looking at her:

It was Bonnie's newfound friend. He kept looking her straight into the eyes. She returned the look and saw something she expected to see:

Wish.

But there was no desire, no lust and no sign of any sexual erection. She only saw wish in these eyes. He felt caught and slowly looked to the side that none of the girls sat on. Then he slowly returned his look and attention towards his weapon and pressed it into his shoulder. The left hand had remained upon the shoulderpiece while the right had rested on the earth beside him.

Liz saw his back slightly pressing upwards, away from the ground. He was taking a breath in and let it out with a sigh. It sounded like a quiet "Hmmm" when the air slowly went out of his nose. He began to fire and moved his shoulders among, certainly to follow the things he shot at. At first the movements were a little slower and Liz felt like he doubted his own actions, like as if he didn't want to do what he did.

But after some time he got back to "normal" and his shoulders moved as fast as they did before. Again small yellow tubes fell from the weapons right side and rolled down the crater. She looked to where they lay: It was an impressive amount, not enough to cover the entire ground but enough to make a picture.

She began to shiver and put the arms around her knees while pulling them up. She looked towards Hanna while sitting down beside Bonnie. Hanna was starting to cry but tried to hide it. Tara put a hand on her cheek and gently moved her head back so that they were face to face again. She gave Hanna a wonderfull look while speaking with a soft voice.

"It's okay. I don't mind it. No one does."

Hanna blinked a few times and then moved towards Tara. Said girl put her arms around the young lady and hummed the melody. Hanna began to sob loudly and whimpered words that barely made sense. Liz realised that it had been the right decision to not demand Tara's attention. The gunfire was still loud as hell but it wasn't as bad anymore.

She didn't like to hear it, but she started to accept it. The loud bangs weren't as harsh anymore and the cold wasn't as sadistic as before too. She still froze but it wasn't as bad anymore. Hanna kept bringing out single words between her loud sobbings. Liz only understood a few of the chunks. She returned her look upon the guy again. He had his backpack resting on the left beside him together with a few sticklike things.

She shivered at the thought of how could he had to feel with the dirty and soaked cloathes on. Suddenly the firing stopped and the guy lead the left hand to his backpack. He got a small grey cylinder out of it while his right hand remained near the weapon. Liz got up and walked on the crater's circle in a new way: She walked while bending down at the same time.

The result was a strange way of walking: It wasn't as fast as normal walking but it felt safer. She knelt down a meter away from him and observed his actions: He kept scanning the area through his relatively clean glasses while bringing the right hand up. The left hand had put the old cylinder away in the meantime. Then it pressed a small button, a click came and a small part of the gun opened to stand upright.

After that the left took the cylinder while the right gripped somehting at a small latch. A small series of the yellow tubes was in what seemed to be a belt of sorts. He pulled the belt until about three of the yellow tubes could be seen. Meanwhile the left hand put the cylinder to a small opening that had been covered by the now upstanding part. The right put one of the yellow tubes infront of a grey-black tube with a spring around it.

Then he slowly pressed the upstanding part back down again and a small grip on its right side forward. Liz lay down to his right and looked at the people that the guy shot at. A very thin and grey person with a triangled head walked a little bit doglike over the ground. She wondered why it wasn't shot at.

"Wh-"

"Shh..."

He had whispered almost inaudibly quiet but the grey man seemed to have heard him. He suddenly stretched up like a sniffing dog and looked around. She didn't notice that the guy waved her to get away. The man made a few strange noises and more of his sort came out of holes in the street. The entire street looked like crap because it was covered with craters on about thirty meters brideness and fifty meters lenght.

A few of the shops and offices had token damage on their walls, one of them was on fire and two of them were completely destroyed. Persons came out of the holes as well: Pale people walked in front of the group, the grey men were in the core and normal people with clubs and knives were the rest. Then the guy opened fire:

Grey thin pearls with white long strings at their ends flew around and Liz saw some of the people literally being cut in half. The grey men suddenly shrieked up but were cut down except for one and most of the normal poeple died as well. He shot his gun from the left to the right in short firings. Yellow tubes and brownish pieces of a fabric or leather flew from its right side.

A strange fascination made her watch the destructon of life: A man was hit in the chest what made him fall behind. More pearls hit him in the rest of his chest and shoulder while he fell back. Before he vanished from view Liz saw that the rather huge holes in his body formed a line that went upward and to the right in the same angle.

One of the grey things was hit right into its strange head, it was simply ripped open like a little nut, someone else lost his lower arms and upper body when he tripped. A loud shreek could be heard, a few plops came and she saw something get up into the air. It was small strings with a trail of smoke at their ends. The guy kept firing into the group.

A series of explosions came down nearby but Liz didn't bother pressing herself down. A lot of dirt was thrown upon them and Hanna began to loudly whimper in Tara's arms. The blonde girl soothed her with her a few shhh-noises and said that "Max would keep us safe."

And already the noise of his gun made most of them drop to the ground in fear. But only a few made it to the ground unharmed. The pale people didn't drop unless being shot. Liz saw how one of them twitched under the heavy pounding upon his chest. More and more small fountains of blood erupted from the smashing holes in his body. Bloody foam came out of his mouth before he collapsed.

A grey man jumped out of a hole nearby but was caught midair when the heavy sounds, similar to ritting fabric, punished him. His entire body stood in the air for a moment until it simply fell with all movement's energy stolen. Three normal people ran out of their hole while screaming like maniacs. Their eyes had an insane red shine as they charged. The first of them, who was already walking, was left alone at first.

The last who got up was hit first: His head split up and he simply slumped to the ground in almost the same motion and speed like when got up. The second one was hit in the chest once but the other three or two pearls didn't hit him. He fell backwards into the hole and started to scream VERY loud and painfull. The guy who shot gave a small grumble at his miss an aimed at the first one. Said man saw that his two friends hadn't made it and tried to run into another crater.

The pale people kept coming, as well as the greys. The guy did something strange: He shot the third normal man and then took a deep breath into his lungs:

"SHRRRRIIIIRRLLL!"

Immediatly the greys stopped walking, looked up like dogs and stood there like idiots. Before Liz could say anything the plops came again and bombs flew. Liz understood what happened: The things were shot at by their own bombs! A few of the redeyed people panicked and ran away while a lot of explosions came down.

Most of them didn't last a second in the massive bombing. The two remaining grey's ran away but they were cut down by the strange guns that these big things far away used. One of the pale men dully looked around and made a mourn. No one and nothing but him and the three things far away were still alive.

Then a bomb hit him right in the chest and Liz saw the strange design of it. The bomb entered his belly until a certain depth and then his guts flew around just as his head, who landed on a roof nearby. The legs kept standing around for a moment before falling over like a piece of wood.

Liz had to laugh at the sight for a reason she didn't know. She laughed heartily what made her overhear two shrieks. Three greys came out of a crater very far away and were cut by the guy at an instant. Since Liz was already rolling over the earth underneath her she didn't notice the burns on her legs. At first.

"AUUU!"

She quickly stood up and shook her legs what made the yellow tubes drop from her skirt and bare legs. Everyone who wasn't unconscious, shooting or shot looked at her while she sat down.

"Does one of you ladys have an mp3 player among?"

---

Rufus moved towards a trash cabin while the blackness came closer. He took in a breath and whistled loudly. The men didn't need even a second to raise their metallic things and run towards him. One of them spoke things that Rufus didn't understand at all. He congratulated his own little victory with a smile and ran back to his two humans. And the blackness came.

It was already spreading around them in a halfcircle and seemingly wanted to isolate them. It wasn't just a pack of blackness: There was the invisibly black core and there was a field of seeable blackness around it. The core spread and spread slowly but it only did so in, or on, areas that had been crossed by its lesser black surrounding "aura".

It was like the sun: A core with a "skin" around its outer surface. But the blackness didn't radiate light, it radiated nothing but a weaker but still strong sort of blackness. And its core wasn't a ball. It had no defined shape and could move, stretch and grow like an animal or plant.

Or like a human.

And its "skin" remained loyal to its shifting and expanding master. But there was something else in or around that blackness. Or was the blackness only its medium? Rufus didn't know. But what he knew was that he heard noises. They were almost like voices. The more blacknes existed and the closer he got the bigger and rythmic were the noises.

Slowly the noises put themselves into a strange kind of order while desperatly trying to become something that Rufus could understand. He heard noises that weren't human or animal but just something. And that something wanted to make noises. Maybe the noises wanted to help? Or maybe they wanted to lure him into that blackness? Rufus didn't know.

The men came closer just as the blackness did what made them fight a strange competition of speed. A run for life or death, even though one of the two parties didn't know it and the other was not a party at all:

It was nothing, the spreading blackness, the neverfed devourer.

Brick for brick was first stricken by the black stuff's aura only to vanish into it just a moment later. And its speed of spread increased slowly but steadily just as the area it consumed. It began to spread through the gap between the two buildings like as if it wanted to darken all heavens above them. And the noises from the blackened something grew intenser.

Slowly something grew out of the blackness like an organic plant. It took the rough shape of a quadratic block about as long as a spear. And the whispers grew louder until reaching a chorus of painfilled mourns, hatefilled curses and hopefull wishings. They kept their loudness while the block's surface slowly retreated and revealed something.

It was long and pitchblack and even though it seemed to be made of metal it had a strangely organic aura. An aura that moved, activated or enhanced something within Rufus. Something old, forgotten and buried. The voises stretched into painfull and begging screams for help while black foglike streams moved into the blackened item.

His two humans got louder and their gestures and movement became agressive while their voices raised normal talking. More and more voices hammered in his head while the weapon in the figures hands and the figure itself kept sucking something out of the blackness they, basicly, consisted of.

On one unperceptable sign the sucking, draining, drawing or whatever it was stopped. And Rufus understood one last sentence:

_Master, Master! You_ _promised only lies!_

Then, as one, three red lights flashed out of nothing within the blackness, two at a tall human's headhight and one at the weapon. They flashed intensly for one moment before dying down to a not less threatening glow. The weapon's red light flashed through a tube at its front that was surrounded by a quadratic straw with rather many symetric and quadratic holes.

And in the same moment an immense barrage of hatred arose within Rufus. It grew and grew no matter what

The tubes surrounding gave the light that radiated a strange pattern. It looked like when someone stood infront of a window and lightened a dark room from the outside. The window's inner case created barriers for the light that made shadows dance in over ground and items in rythmic ways. However the person's red light hasn't been hindered by its form, it didn't radiate agianst the wall behind it or aganist the weapon.

The weapon however harnessed the light, forced it down after it came and even while allowing it access harnessed and hindered it. It seemed to control the light and not bed under its will like the person did. The monster and it's weilder had awakened. But the shape seemed to have problems with harnessing the weapon; It seemed to have its own will. And it didn't bend down to it's weilder. Instead it seemed to only "burrow" its power and service to its weilder without truly bending under its will.

Not the master reigned since his tool was the master. It was like a cowboy who tried to taim a wild horse, he couldn't really force it under his will. He could only try to make it believe that it would have an easier life under his lead. They worked together and were still apart from each other. They despised each other and still worked together. They were like fire and water and didn't burn away. They were a contrast.

Both the shape and what seemed to be its weapon inspired something within Rufus as his slight unsettlement turned to outright fear. But the naked rodent kept his mind under control for the moment. It was hard to resist the urge of simply doing something or stopping to do something. Rufus didn't know what but something within wanted to either get out of him or hide. He didn't know that his mind ignored the obvious sings of threat that it's body gave him.

His two humans still didn't react when Rufus heard a single voice within him: _Run_

But Rufus didn't run away. No, he would defend his two little humans even when they were about to jump at each other's throats.

"Who the fucking hell cares about assfucked guns anyway?" The female yelled in an untypical behaviour.

Rufus realised he had only one chance: He had to distract the creature and its dangerous "servant" until the grey men arrived. He jumped at the thing without making contact with it and while flying by he bit into what certainly was its hand. After landing on the ground Rufus turned around and felt that his teath had somewhat disappeared. He simply didn't feel the part of them that had made contact with the blackened man.

He used one of his little hands to touch the place where they had been: They were still there but...

Rufus felt like they were gone. Or like as if the part of him that had been inside his teeth had vanished. The voices came back, louder than ever, begging, crying, whining, praying. Some of them seemed to look forward upon something while others didn't want something to happen. And suddenly they made choir, like as if they wanted to play something:

Male deep voices made a hah-hah-hah while brighter voices went underneath it with a less loud hah-hah-hah. Two cellos began to quietly play in the background. Then the figure went on towards his two humans who, literally, fought with words. Insults and profanitys of an untypical speed, rate and intensity went back and forth. And the closer "blacky" came towards them the louder and faster they became.

Rufus sqealed loudly but the man didn't react. The choir mixed in with cries of anticipation, fear and anger for a very short moment. The two new voices that went into the choir were the ones of his two humans. They became louder and more and more desperate the closer the man walked towards them while they still behaved oblivious to his existance. It felt like as if one part of them was already close or inside the man while the other wasn't.

Rufus squealed loudly and ran towards the man while stiffing his body. The figure stopped shortly and the two voices were still there but weren't as loud as before. It's "head" turned around while the choir sounded up again. It was loud and its different layers of voices sung in perfect coordinance. Hah-hah-hah. It felt like a song to his own grave. Hah-hah-hah.

Red orbs, devoid of anything but their light and something sinister behind it, kept burning into him while its head stayed tilted to a side for a moment. And the choir kept playing like as if the blackened man wanted it to. He was about to walk further when Rufus made a decision: It was him or the man. Determination took his heart with an iron hand. The choir went on and the man stopped.

Its head turned until the red eyes stared at him over its shoulder: Red immortal torches of hate pierced whatever defense his soul had given.

He slowly turned around and faced his small but not harmless harasser. In one swift motion his weapon rose and it began to fire with a lifedefying sound. He jumped away but felt the bullets go by way too close, it was like as if they moved within the air to get him. They whooshed by and Rufus heard more than just that: There were cries of agony among the firing and Rufus could swear he saw faces upon the bullets.

Faces with greed and pain inside them showed their intention: Destroying his body, taking his body and stealing his mind were their goals.

But Rufus, fueled by desperate measures, didn't stop his onslaut: He jumped past the thing what made it slowly turn its head at first, and then, like a machine, the body followed in its strangely steady pace and overall movement speed. And the manslayer in its grasps followed suit.

It's overpowered tool of hate and executor of murder spat another series of bullets at him. The apocalyptic sounds came among an impressive muzzlefire that consisted of four thin yellow strains of light that spread from its front end in a crosslike pattern. Heavy lights flared over the walls, bodies and snow what made the shadows dance in strange patterns.

But neither the person nor its weapon were illumiated. Instead they blocked and sucked in the light that should lit them up. And the choir wasn't put away by the firing noises but instead got louder and intenser. The man seemed to play him when it started to walk sideways between Rufus and what he wanted to protect no matter what:

Kim and Ron who were still oblivious to their doom. The warmaster that seperated them from their saviour knew all the tricks, knew all the knacks and, most important, knew Rufus' thoughts. And the grey men were still not there. The man turned away from him, appearently satisifed or fed with something and raised his left arm at the two. Their voices echoed within the choir once more, louder than ever.

Rufus sensed that there was only one more chance: A direct attack. He collected his hate, for it seemed to be the only thing of interest for the man and ran. Rufus felt his hate being sucked out of him as he ran closer to the man. It stopped doing whatever it did for a short moment but not for long enough for the grey men to arrive. So Rufus jumped at the man.

His mind and soul kept screaming at him to don't jump but something else pressed him further on: The voice of his own mother among the choir.

---

"Dammit this place is scary..." Bonnie muttered to herself. All feeling and confirmation that proved her speach vanished just as the memory of it did.

It felt like she had never spoken. Never. And it felt like she had said nothing. Absolutely nothing. Like as if the speach hadn't existed.

She tried to walk a bit but couldn't, she tried to move but it didn't go. Nothing could be done and even her thoughts, shortly after being thought, vanished both from her memory as well as from existence itself. She even forgot about herself, the memory and picture of her arms and legs vanished from her memory. In one moment she still knew who her mother and sisters were and in the next she didn't know that she had family at all. Everything vanished.

Memories, pictures, knowledge, her own existence slowly vanished into forgetting. Everything slowly went away from her. Everything vanished, her personality, her life, her being. It simply stopped existing. And the cold was still there.

"God I hate this place!" Who was "God"? What was a place? She had already forgotten. "What's hate?... Hmmm hate... sounds good."

Somehow the memory of "hate" didn't vanish like the rest did. It stayed unlike the other stuff, including the person Bonnie Rockwaller. Nothing but hate was untouched, was not token away and was still there. Even though Bonnie was about to forget what "still being there" meant.

---

Tara handed him a small sticklike player. Max looked at the small device and already began to fiddle around at it while watching the remaining crawlers, undead and bio's. He switched it on and looked at the music that was upon it: There was only techno, gabba and trance. If he hadn't been so empty his face would have shown disgust. There was only one 'fitting' song on it, the rest was useless popmusic. 

He thought: Just one song limited his choices, and with that the girls chances, drastically. But he could only lose. As always.

"I throw the player into the field, they will attack the thing, you will run away, I will stay here and keep them from running after you."

"And you think that will work?" The girl who sat near him with slight burns from the cartridges said. His face remained a stern mask and betrayed the hurt he felt from being put in doubt. He had given them simple rules for staying alive and they hadn't obeyed. It was a miracle that no one was dead. Yet.

"Girls I think we should listen to him. Everytime we didn't one of us got hurt..." Tara suggested. A usefull girl. She caught on quick.

"But why don't we just call the cops?" The girl in her arms asked.

"They won't come." He stated and watched the entire street again. There was no movement. They kept waiting for backup. He took his machinegun, which was overheated and hence useless for a time, and dropped beside the shot girl.

"All of you stand above her and take her up on my go. Then you-" he pointed at the still sad girl. "Will shove the mg below her while we hold her up. Then I'll tie her to it so you can carry her. After that I'll turn the music on and throw it towards them. That will keep them distracted so you can run safely. I'll stay here and kill those that follow you. You won't be shot at because they'll shoot at the player."

The ladies didn't do anything until Tara sat down and put her hands under the girls tie. Slowly the other two followed her example and took hold. The left one took the gun, on his go they took her up, the mg lay below her and they slowly put her down again. He was proud of the ladies since they already had a group instinct and synchronised rythm when they did something.

"I say we go to the Sunrise appartments two blocks from here. They've got that big blue comercial sign above the entrance. Then we'll go to the second floor and put something red to the door to our rooms. How does that sound?" He agreed with the legburned young lady.

"How much is two blocks? How does that building look like? And does second floor mean groundfloor, one level and then another or is the groundfloor the first floor at the same time?"

Tara, as helpfull as always, spoke: "You go to that crossing, walk over two other crossings and on the left side is a huge building. A big blue sing is on top of it. If you see it from afar go at it. And there's groundfloor, first floor and second floor so three levels." She moved her hands among the named floors what showed that the numbered floors were above the groundfloor.

"You have to ask stuff like that? What a moron are you anyway?" He looked up to see the girl whose lifeless corpse he got back to life and didn't say anything even though the hate made it hard to keep his mouth shut.

"Hanna! You're hurting him!" Tara said to help what made "Hanna" turn a little red. "Ohh... sorry I din't-"

Sorrys. Always the stupid, faked and morinic sorrys. If they wouldn't want to hurt they should think earlier.

He continued to tie the shot one's head between his guns bipod and her lower legs to its grip. Said grip stuck, ironicly, out between her legs like a bicylce's saddle. He took three of his mg-clips and took the belts out of them. After that he used them to tie her hard to his weapon. Then he furrowed his brows in faked concentration and bento down to its receiver.

"Keep them safe and I will feed you more." No one had noticed his little 'dialoge' with the machine as he switched his backpack with Tara.

"Only open the door when I knock like this: k, pause, k, pause, k, pause, k-k. and say 'On through the never' afterwards. Don't open even when I or someone else begs you to. ONLY open with the correct password. Stay quiet so that no one hears you. If I'm not there in fifteen minutes leave without me towards the hospital and try to get a surgeon for your shot friend."

With that he put the player to full capacity, the new backpack on and looked at his pistol. After that he withdrew his bloodtipped bayonett and put it under his rifle's barrel. Which was just what the thing had been build for after all. Hanna and the burned girl gave him bewildered looks at that.

"You're not gonna...use this are you?"

---

Rufus didn't feel his body anymore. It was no longer there. He had simply vanished into the blackened person. It had felt just like the way his teeth had felt: No feeling at all, which was somehow ironic. He felt that he didn't feel. But he did what he had intended to do even though he wasn't where he had intended to be. He flung his fists around and kicked while making his funny squeeks. But nothing helped.

At first the blows got slower and weaker, than the kicks stopped and in the end he couldn't feel his own squeels anymore. Slowly they simply vanished into something, like as if that somehting would simply eat them. No matter what he did it simply stopped and left him after some time. He started to breath very had from it. Or was it just his mind pretending or wishing to breathe?

The choir became louder and louder while Rufus started to hear his own mother within it. He knew that she had died from an illness two years ago. And even though he didn't know much about his past he knew that he had been amplified or maybe even created two years ago.

And then Ron, his beloving father had come. He had taken him away from all the other pets and from the lonelyness of his own little cage. The memory of it began to vanish, it slowly got blurry and faint, details got lost until the whole picture stopped being there. Rufus tried his best to keep the memory but it left. He summoned more memories: The first time he had seen something, his first piece of cheese and his first meeting with Ron's female.

Rufus knew that females and males always had offspring no matter the race. But he didn't understand why it wasn't the case with his two humans.

---

Kim's head popped up at a few noises. They were distant, quiet and far, far away. Then she moved her head sideways and saw a few of the men she had observed firing their weapons into something. She couldn't make out what it was nor why nor when: Time slowly came back to her. Somehow Kim couldn't remember anything but starting a hushed rant about gun's evilness. Then she spotted something.

It was a slightly pink thing, it moved through the air after coming out of something... black.

---

The choir rose to a monumental size and volume without deafening him. And to his pleasure, which vanished shortly after its uprising, the voices of the two had gone out of it. Rufus kept struggling with literally anything he had but nothing worked, nothing could resist the nonexistance, nothing was able to resist the Never. Ron had given him life and now Rufus gave it back. With a last sigh, a desperate uprise of all left reserves he made a final squeek in hopes that his father would hear it.

And the choir stopped singing.


	41. Loss

41: Loss

I don't own KP stuff and I don't own the song "The trooper" from Iron Maiden.

The grey men she had observed shot into one of the blackened men they had escaped from. Lances of light flew into the figure and exploded into fistthick light-blue explosions. The man seemed unimpressed and fired his huge machinegun. Kim grabbed Ron and pressed herself into the snow, barely in time. The huge weapons bullets flew shortly over her head and singed a few of her hairs.

She withdrew her grappling hook and was about to shoot into a nearby building's rooftop when she noticed that its top was still amiss. She mentally slapped herself and looked towards the man again. Its shooting went into the grey men aside her and struck them down: One was thrown back while his weapon kept firing, another one simply fell to the ground backwards and dropped his weapon.

The remaining three kept swarming out while firing into the man. One lost his legs, the other was pounded upon by a force that made his body twitch and convulse like a mistreated puppet. The last one began to run towards his enemy while yelling something none of the both understood. Kim had expected any normally thinking human to flee but he ran up to his enemy in seemingly full knowledge of his sure death. He was cut down with a gunfiring's noise that fitted his death: Ritting fabric.

Two more men came around the corner with their weapons blazing into the blackened shape infront of her. Kim was shocked at their disturbing disregard of their own life. They were cut down before firing more than a few rounds. Then the muzzle moved back towards her and she grabbed Ron around the waist. Before he made a noise Kim kicked herself away from the snow and made a big jump. Their two bodies catapulted away from the man and narrowly escaped the large number of snowy fountains.

After landing on the snowy street and making sure Ron wasn't harmed from it Kim realised her new position: The blackened man was between her and the dead grey men. Their enemy turned around and Kim saw huge holes in its chest, lower abdomen and left leg, holes that would have made any human die and collapse from the severed leg and massive bloodloss. And missing the own belly was surely not nice too.

But the man didn't mind nor care. He moved slowly and in the same steady speed while turning around raising his weapon. Then Kim noticed him stagger and turning the holed chest. His left arm turned away from the weapon. Her kimmunicator beeped and released a short translation:

"In his name!"

A figure crawled towards the man from behind: It was the man who had lost his lower legs. He kept moving forward by clawing his hands into the snow while one of them held the seperated bayonett and used as an icepickle. Kim was shocked to see such a disturbing disregard for the own life. He kept moving forward with a disturbing ferocity.

She released Ron's hand and made a dash for her enemy. She remembered the strange experience she had while kicking one of them so she jumped towards a dropped rifle. While the blackened man's arm turned around it seemed to grow in lenght. A longer part of blackness grew and took shape as something metallic.

Kim saw how the thing in his hands took shape as some sort of pistol: Thin and quiet but fearfull voices whispered into her ear while she saw parts of metal growing out the darkness. She could see its rough shape and all the parts as they came in a strangely detailed way: She could see all details before they vanished into a blackness that was less intense than before. The weapon's inners remained black like the darkness they grew out of while its outer rim, its "skin", was clearly visible as a jetblack metal.

A red light went through its back and then into the finished front. She could see it travel through the barrel almost like a bullet because its light went through the guns shell ejecting hatch. It radiated out the part in an exactly opposite angle just like a lever's lower end turned into the opposite direction of its upper ends push, if the lever was divided intwo by a turning point.

She took the weapon and prepaired to use it as club or sword when the man's new weapon finished its "growth". The man fired into his crippled enemy. The poor man dropped to the ground with an unholy hole in his helmet. She ran towards her enemy and slashed her club into its head. No reaction came, it went straight through the head like as if it wouldn't have any physical mass.

It's arm turned towards her and the swing made it impossible for her to move away in time. Her eyes widened at the revelation:

She had made a mistake.

But, to her luck, something jetblack moved towards his head and connected with it. The red eyes and their head of blackness were pushed aside among the pistol's barrel. She moved aside for as much as she could manage when it fired a bullet with a very characteristic noise. The blackened thing with a trail of yellow light rushed past her cheek and created a feeling of unearthly pain inside her whole body.

With a noise of shattering glass the man fell aside and dropped to the ground like a piece of lumber. It looked like as if he wouldn't know how to get back up again, like as if he wasn't able to move his limbs anymore. But instead of falling into a position that was normal for people who had been beaten his body remained in the walking stance he had have had before.

Kim didn't waste any thoughts to it and turned towards Ron who looked at the pistol that had fallen out of the man's hand. He took it from the ground and a holster from the man's right belt.

"Ron this isn't the time for- AUH!"

Kim had touched her cheek and was surprised at how painfull it was. But instead of her cheek her entire body ached. Strangewise the cheek remained numb, just like her leg had remained numb for a few moments after her backfired kick. Ron simply ignored her, totally engrossed into the small gun. She wanted to scream: "Hey I' injured here!" But barely kept herself from it.

She stomped forward to turn him around with a mad look in her eyes. And even though she wouldn't admit it to anyone: She was more then jealous on the stupid gun. Why did get Ron's attention while she didn't get any? She couldn't understand what made a stupid tool of murder more interesting then her.

"Boys and their toys!" She grumbled quietly while taking in a deep breath to give him hell of a lecture when she noticed him slowly raising something in his hands. Just when she was about to drop her payload like a bommerplane she saw the pistol lying where it had been before.

"R-Rufus!"

Curiosity won over jealosy for a short moment what made her bend down. In Ron's hands lay Rufus. He was still and she could feel a strange form of numbness inside his body.

"Rufus? Ron what happe-"

---

Bonnie was no longer sure if she was Bonnie anymore, nor did she know what "being sure" meant. Something came, entered her or created a feeling where no feelings had been for maybe endless times in a place where time did not exist. "She" , if she was still something, there or existant, which could be doubted, "turned" around. In a place where there was no "turn around". In a place where nothing existed.

Bonnie could see, sense or at least feel something being there, something that stopped her own process of ending for a short moment. If moments where more then an illusion of her own decaying mindset, her own set of thoughts in a place where everything ended into nothing. Something was there and it struggled against something that couldn't be struggled against: Forgetting.

Something existed in the place of nonexistance, in the realm of forgetting and in the existance-defying place of non-existance. It kept moving in a feeble attempt to create arms, legs and eyes to move and see with while clawing in its own memories of its body. With nothing to store memories in it kept going on. It wasn't vanishing, it's destruction was no destruction and it didn't decay even though "her" small remains of memories told her it was.

"They", which was no more then one almost lost mind and one less lost mind, turned towards each other in a feeble attempt of connection. They wanted to meet, wanted to connect, wanted to create. But there was no creation in the place of non-existance where the word and small part of existance that was called "place" was not there, not defined, where it was did not exist.

She felt it trying to come, move or walk closer to her. But it could not come, move or walk since what it believed to be walking was just a memory of something it was about to forget. It could not keep its memories and by that lost them until the memory that was its personality, body and mind would be forgotten as well. It didn't forget, no, instead it could no longer remember itself and hence stopped existing.

Whatever was out there helped Bonnie for a short moment where moments and shortness weren't there. Bonnie started to remember what a "something" and a "person" were and thus kept herself "alive" for a little "longer". She remembered all the things that make her existance, her tree of life got a few leafes back that kept it alive. But without leafes there was no tree.

And without memories there was no existance, thus no Bonnie Rockwaller.

Whatever it was got through the same status of selfforgetting that Bonnie had almost gone through and with that, literally, reminded her of being there herself. And with that maybe saved her for a few seconds as she began to remember seconds and "saving". A few parts of the puzzle that, made of thousands of parts, created Bonnie Rockwaller, came back.

She could feel Ron's little pet struggling against forgetting and something that feasted on his fight. It absorbed his movements, sucked his struggling away and drained all emotions except for one: Hate.

His entire behaviour slowly seized to nothing but hatefulled pushes, stabs and punches. Until there were no more pushes and no more punches. They seized existing while the hate within the small thing grew. It used his emotions as a shield for his hate, let everything else be consumed into blackness to raise hate. It grew and grew into a small red dot.

Whispers rose from out of nowhere and reached her mind while reddened spots of light came. They were always two at a time, similar to eyes, and took formation around the small thing that was Rufus. More and more came and went towards him and the first ones already stood still. Rufus kept on doing more and more of his futile fighting while the eyes watched him.

Bonnie started to remember things that had been forgotten in the timeless place she existed in. Ideas of movement, support and help formed in her mind as she moved towards the little thing.

---

He was done with doing the small bandage to keep the stinger in her belly in its position.

"Everytime I raise my arm you take cover in the next crater. Run from everyone and -thing no matter what. If you see someone coming towards you yell 'In his name!' And run away. Tara I trust you to keep your friends from any contact. Everyone you see, meet or hear is your enemy, understood? When you meet someone ask them 'What's the heaven's colour?'. If they say crimson run from them."

Without really noticing it all three girls said "Blue.".

Tara nodded and her bodylanguage showed that she would do anything to keep her friends safe. Hanna didn't feel good with the thought of taking orders from a complete stranger. She wouldn't trust the man/guy/boy no matter if Tara, Bonnie and Liz did so.

"You take the bipod, you" He pointed at her, "take the middle part from the right side and you" he pointed at Liz: "Take the end. As soon as I lower my arm you start to walk fast. No sprint, no run. I guess you had enough sport to know how to not waste your powers. Hanna If you can't carry her anymore because of your arm try to keep her from sliding out of position, okay?"

She nodded but wasn't convinced. "Why don't we just call the cops?"

"They won't come because their internal communication has been cut off. But call Mrs Possible to get you with her car and-"

"get to the hospital. We're not stupid you know?" She talked back while taking her phone, which was positioned in the same small pocket of her skirt. From the outside it looked like as if there was no pocket and it was thin enough to not hinder her during practice.

"You'll be fine Chrystal I promise." Liz spoke while gently stroking her hair and took her spot at the weapon to carry. Tara did the same and Hanna followed, still not willing to do stupid orders, but smart enough to not get her friends angry.

"If we ever meet again ask me what my grand-grandfather has been with. If I don't answer 'With the tanks' shoot me. I will no longer be my true self then."

Her brows furrowed at the strange saying while he put the player on and threw it away from them. He raised his arm, the music began to play, loud shreeks came as well as dull thuds. A series of explosions hammered down infront of them and his arm sped down. As one her friends and the guy got up in different directions. They ran away from and he towards their enemy.

"What did he mean with 'If we ever meet again' ?" Liz asked and Tara sighed loudly in reply.

---

Rufus lay cold and lifeless in his hands but Ron still refused to believe he could be...

"Rufus come on buddy!" Come on man!"

His entire vision focused on the small thing in his hands and everything else lost its importance. He couldn't be dead. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't be. His mind and heart refused the possibility of his life being ended. The picture of Rufus jumping into the man coming out of it like a lifeless doll replayed in his mind. It couldn't be.

"Ron what happened?" A voice far away asked but Ron didn't reply. Something snapped, broke, fell apart inside him. The blackened man slowly got up again but Ron didn't care. He didn't care about the dead people around him nor about Kim putting a hand his shoulder. Rufus had always been a good friend and more then justt a pet. He had always been smart as a human even if his speachcraft hadn't been the best.

If he thought of people like Josh Mankey aka monkey and his minions Rufus seemed even smarter then many humans. Or at least nicer. He refused to believe in Rufus possible end and started to sob. He didn't care that Kim put her amrs around his back. He didn't feel her hands stroking over his belly nor did her warmth aproach him. He didn't care about the blackened man who had gotten up again and was staring at him.

Memories and pictures came up, memories of the two having fun, of the two sharing strange moments while hunting Drakken and Shego. A flood of pictures came into him as his eyes began to tear, both from overusage and sadness. He didn't hear Kim starting to sob as well nor did he feel her tears landing on his back. Sadness rose as he thought of losing his best friend.

There was no heartbeat, no pulse and no breathing in the little, sleak and thin body. Slowly his eyes wandered upwards to see the blackened figure infront of him standing there like as if nothing had happened. The weapon rested low and in both hands since he had left his pistol on the ground. All sadness slowly went away like it stopped being inside him as he stared back into a couple of red flares.

The sadness within slowly vanished and Ron felt to what place it went: The blackened man's eyes. He stood there, still, unmoving, watching like a spectator. Like as if nothing would interest him in any way, like as if it wouldn't be his fault. Anger rose and grew like a mutated plant on extrafertilised ground. The seed of hate grew.

"You..." He growled without realising that his mouth was moving.

The man stood there like a ghost, like nothing but a visitor or tourist and Ron wondered when he would take a photo of his misery. Anger slowly grew into despisement and was slowly replaced by hatred.

"YOU-"

Pure rage unfolded in his mind and heart as everything else had already left. He felt dull, empty, shallow and numb. Something had broken down within his heart and someone had to pay for it. His senses came back and he noticed Kim crying on his back. For a short moment worry and concern came but were slowly replaced by hatred which grew like an oversized plant within his heart and mind.

"Your fault!"

Pure hate flowed inside him and Ron willingly gave into it. Everything left: Sorrow, tragedy, care, sadness, anger. It was all replaced by hate. The man. It was all his fault. The mistreatement Ron had received, Rufus death, Camp Wannaweep, everything. He finally found a culprit, a criminal, someone to blame. And in a gigantic explosion of hate and rage he speed forward, fully ignorant to Kim's tries of keeping him near her.

Everything became hate: The snow, the man, the gun before him. Without a thought and right on cue his monkey power came up but slowly vanished into the blackened man, literally. The lotusblade grew out of his right hand while he took the pistol into his left. The man raised his weapon but was too slow: With superhuman speed and reflexes Ron burst forward, rammed the blade into his head and raised "his" pistol.

The man was defensless like a puppy when Ron started to hack at him: The first strike of his blade hammered the gun out his grasp but strangewise didn't cut through it. The pistol in his hands felt strangely uncommon but he pressed the trigger again and again while dancing sideways around the man. And before the man could have reacted swift strikes cut through his body and bullets hammered into his head.

The effect wasn't that great: A few cuts that slowly "refilled" in his chest, abdomen and arms came from the sword while the pistol repeatedly punched holes into the man's head and made the red flares vanish. Ron forgot about anything but hate when kept slashing the empty firearm and his sword into the man's body.

Time passed even though Ron forgot about what Time was. He didn't see more of the blackened men rise from the blackened wall and ground nor did he notice the music that came from somewhere nearby. Hate hate hate, just hate. It was, is and will be anything but hate. Then something reached his ears and made him turn around.

Kim. Crying and with her hands infront of the face. For a short moment concern came back and Ron dropped the sword. He didn't notice it vanishing as it always did when it was dropped. He put his pistol into Rufus's pocket without really paying attention to it. He stared at Kim but he couldn't hate her. He just couldn't. No matter how much and hard he tried it simply didn't work.

The hate slowly vanished and sadness grew. He sat down infront of her and looked at her like as if she'd be something strange and exotic. Memories came back that had left before. And slowly Ron remembered who the crying thing infront of him was: Kim Possible, his best freind for life. Slowly his arms wrapped around her and she looked up through reddened eyes.

She saw a red glow in Ron's eyes that slowly vanished before he hugged her. She put her head beside his and both began to cry.

---

Rufus kept on for as long as he could but didn't make it: Whatever the reddened things around him were they had greater power than him. Something shone, made a small light and showed a picture: It was his "father" and his female tugged closely. Rufus made a last stand and, convinced of having saved his two humans from the red things, let go. He stopped his struggle and let himself go, not willingly, but no more resisting, and ended completely.

Rufus died while his body was already nothing but an empty hull.

---

_You'll take my life and I'll take yours too! Dumm-di du dumm-  
_

Max didn't want to do all the killing but he knew one siple thing: It was him or them.

He had made a difficult decision that answered a difficult question. Difficult because there was no good or bad decision, difficult because there was no black or white, no win or loss. He could only lose. The question was rather simple in its context:

Let all the girls and him die or let himself and Bonnie die.

It was just two options, just two ways of doing it. And running away himself was an option, but none he would take. He could only chose between two bad things, between two horrors, between to evils. So he took the less worse of the two, the decision that showed the option of at least a few people remaining alive. But for how long?

He faced the truth like he always did, head on and without a lie: He could only give them maybe an hour more to live. They had no chance to escape what came to the city, and even if they made it alive that didn't mean the end of their suffering.

_You'll fire your muscet but I'll run you through! _

The crawlers were, as expected, easy prey. They kept moving their heads around and made confused and desperate shrieks. But the music was too loud, the drums screwed their communication and the guitar was too much for their only way of perception:

Sound, noise, vibration.

He ran towards one of the grey things that kept moving its head around like a child that played tag with shut eyes.

_So when you're waiting for the next attack-_

He rammed his bayonett into the things neck and pressed it to the ground. It was caught offguard and hence had no chance to react. He pulled the trigger, a highpower round sped through its neck and severed its head from the shoulders. It couldn't even scream in time. It wasn't fair, but had life ever been fair to him?

_So when you're waiting for the next attack-_

He sped on by using the swing to turn around into the proper direction. His brain kept yelling it was the wrong one but his heart said it was the right one. Tears began to flow from his eyes as he found himself singing among the songlines of his favourite song. It was a bitter and cynic irony that his favourite played to his funeral.

---

"What the hell is this?"

"I don't know Helen but we shouldn't-"

"We WILL check this out Danny. I don't tolerate any bad music in MY shift!"

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit we're all gonna die!" Od mubmled loudly.

The car spun around and almost slipped but Helen was a good driver. She performed a 180 degrees turn for which any stuntman would have hired her and pressed the speedpedal to its deepest point.

"Hold on something boys this'll get a little rough."

Od was about to say something when he slid over the entire backseat and crashed into a door. Danny, who had already collected experience with Helen's rough rides wasn't impressed. It wasn't like she was a bad driver or insane. She simply pushed the car and its passengers to the very limit when she had one of her 'MY shift' moments. They were rare but appeared sometimes.

---

Hanna heard another series of explosions and looked to what lay behind them: Strangely thin grey men stood around like idiots, pale people shambled around in a strange way and normal people with clubs and alike in their hands moved towards a lonely figure that kept sprinting around. It threw itself to the ground from time to time and explosions came. Hanna was surprised to see him always going down even though the explosions didn't come down near him.

Her arm began to hurt heavilly from Chrystals weight so she released it. The pain stayed and made nearly impossible to move around. They all had token a steady pace that didn't shake the injured girl below her much. A painfilled sigh escaped her gritted teeth what made the others look at her. But she didn't want them to think she wouldn't do her part so she kept the arm on the gun's grip that stung out between Chrystal's legs.

She would laugh at the stupidity of said picture if it wouldn't be in such a messy situation. None of the girls talked what surprised her. She had expected them to make a few jokes or comments to lighten the mood but no one spoke. A thought came.

"Isn't Bonnie still there?" No one answered what confused her.

"Hello? Girls I want to-"

Suddenly Tara made an untypical outburst: Her eyes burned with anger and her lips quievered from rage: "Shut up Hanna!"

She was taken aback. "I just worry for Bonnie! Sorry for-"

"SORRY? A stupid SORRY won't save them!"

Hanna was seriously worried and frightened about how Tara behaved. She was never that way, except for when something really wrong happened. She took a breath to say something when Tara rudely interrupted her.

"Just shut the fuck up! If you hadn't- hadn't- " Hanna didn't remember anything but waking up in that hellhole. And Tara seemed to really fight to hold something back. And that something was both her rage and herself. There was a fire in Tara's eyes that she had never seen before. She looked at Liz for help but she wimply had her head down.

---

He ran past an enraged and pretended to haven't seen the man waiting in his little hole with a layer of dirt as camouflage. The man got up, raised his crude axe, and charged him from behind. Max made a sidestep to turn around, raised his weapon at the man's head before he could react. Another round left his weapon and cut the head inhalf from with the exit-wound as starting point. And, as always, the red glow vanished before the man died.

He shed a tear for the poor misguided man as he saw both his own and the man's powerlessness of the situation. He had to die because his hate forced him to attack and shortly before his death said hate left. The man was punished with death for a crime he was forced to commence. Max saw the surprise and agony in his eyes as the bullet smashed his brain and skull. He was maybe a year older than his killer.

_You better stand there's no turning back!_

He wanted it to end, wanted the killing to stop, wanted the endless murder to end. He didn't want to do all the murders but was forced to. He wanted to party like all the other teenagers, wanted a girlfriend like they all had one, he wanted to live like normal teenager. But he wasn't allowed to, instead he had to murder and shield the persons of his own age, only to be spat upon, shot at and tortured by them.

He started to cry while singing the lyrics and turned around. Another enraged had tired to sneak up on him. The surprise and fear in his eyes would forever be a memory as Max used his swing and embedded the bayonett into the man's skull from a side. He moved among the falling body, slowed down a little like he had learned to do instead of trying to pull the bayonett out while he fell. It would simply take him off balance and wouldn't move out of the skull.

Instead it would simply start to cut through the man's brain and cost him time. But he wouldn't make the same mistake twice. Another one came by, Max used the swing again and ejected the old shell with high speed. The enraged man stroke at him sideways but didn't hit since a round ran through his belly and through one of his kidneys.

He had read something about kidneyshots in a book about a sniper in the great war: It gave the victims inhumanly high amounts of pain and made them scream like nothing else. And, instead of quietly dropping to the ground they terrorised their fellow friends with hellish screams. Two more of the enraged came towards him and staggered in their movement.

Max exploited their mistake and shot one in the kidney. The other one tried to run, selfpreservation won over hatred, but he didn't make it far. His kidney or maybe even both went missing after another shot. Max knew that, for as soon as the music stopped, the crawlers would once again attack the loudest noise. And that would be them instead of him. It was kill or be killed but he still didn't like it.

And then came what he had feared the most: Guncrawlers. They had a strange meaty smallscale version of rocketlaunchers on their back. They were wandering Katyusha-launchers, small copies of the most terrifying weapon of the great war. And he had to go through them. One of them climbed upon a small house and clutched his fangs into the roof before pressing himself flat on the ground.

Pfvuuum the rockets made as it launched all six of them in quick succesion. They were rather slow because they were biological rockets and couldn't withstand as high temperatures and speeds as metal could. And that meant: Less performance. But that was still easily enough to turn a full batallion of marines into bloody shreds. And he had already seen that. He threw himself into a crater before shortly coming up again.

He made a few more steps and crawled to another crater. The rockets impacted wherever he had been a few moments before and threw the earth up. A group of infected, the living dead, walked towards him with only one thing in mind:

Food.

But he knew how to use their own weapons against them and ran right through their midst. He made false jumps, pretended to walk into directions, and shot one of the living corpses that seen through his tricks. He jumped forward and landed in a crater while explosions followed his path. Blood and chunks of frozen flesh came down on him:

Blood rained from the heavens.

---

Something came through the blackness, something audible. Bonnie remembered to hear and caught up the noises: It was music of a kind she didn't like but it was better than nothing. And somewhere in that music, hidden and overshadowed lay another noise:

It was a childhood lullaby, sweetly hummed by a female voice. Bonnie walked towards it and saw something like a door. She moved through it and found herself in a bedroom. The walls had a sweet pinkish colour and fine furniture was strewn around the room. A huge couch stood there and radiated a wonderfull sense of warmth and comfort.

"Hmm?" A voice made and a head poked up from the couch. It was Tara who looked around the room. As soon as she spotted her brunette friend a warm and inviting smile covered her lips. The eyes were warmer and softer then normal and the voice was gentle.

"Bonnie! How nice to see you. Why don't you come over and have a seat?"

"Ughhh" Bonnie growned since her head felt like having been stomped upon. "What the hell is going on?"

"Oh I'll explain. We've been at the hospital and The blackened man was put into prison. The police still hasn't found out how he did it but he somewhat made you unconscious. Why don't you sit so we can talk?"

"Good idea." Bonnie's eyes wandered over the room and stood still on one of the curtains. A name was printed on them: "Morphius Inc."

She took a seat and Tara made more room for her. Bonnie began to stretch and lay her feet over Tara's lap.

"You mind?" She asked in a kindness that no one else but Tara knew she posessed.

"Why don't you put your head on my lap instead?"

Bonnie pondered it for a moment and decid to go along. Tara put a soft pillow on her lap and Bonnie put her head down on it. She cuddled herself a little bit into it and sighed loudly when Tara began to gently stroke her hair.

"How about a little nap? Do you wish to sleep?" She offered in a kind voice. Bonnie thought about it for a moment and decid:

"Hmmm... not yet. I've gotta find out where my Dad is and-"

"Leave."

Tara's voice had lost all its kindness and was replaced with a rather cold and serious tone. Bonnie opened her eyes and saw an absolutely stern look on her face while the eyes showed nothing but cold seriousness.

"Wha-"

"Leave now. You are not wanted to be here."

Bonnie slowly stood up and walked to the door she had come through. "Geez." She stepped through and was somewhere else. She wasn't surprised to be at a different spot then before. But suddenly sitting in a dirty cold hole instead of standing in a corridor or floor was a surprise.

"What the hell?"

She stood up and looked around: The entire area was in a shitty condition, a big load of empty cartridges and empty tubes lay at the ground of the crater she stood in and everywhere was the loud music she had heard before. There were loud sounds of something being shot, maybe rockets of sorts, and smoketrails flew towards a place not far away from her own one. Those trails ended in explosions and left small craters behind.

_The bugle sounds as the charge begins-_

"What the hell is going on here? Wait... this is like all these movies Barkin forced us to- oh shit!"

Bonnie's eyes widened as she saw rockets flying towards a group of people with a mudcovered figure in their middle. Dull thuds, barely audible through the loud music, came and were followed by smoketrails that went straight into the air, made a bow downwards and sped towards the ground with a loud whistle.

Corpses lay around everywhere and when she looked around something grey stared at her. She yelped from surprise and made a step back until she noticed it something very thin. It's head was similar to the thing that had attacked her and Tara during their ride through the early day and it seemed to lie still. Bonnie fought her bad feeling in the belly and touched its head.

Which fell off and rolled into the crater while it's thin neck leaked an orange fluid. She saw something odd inside its thin shoulder. It seemed to be some sort of inbuild cannon with a small trigger behind its connecting straw. The straw as well as the "trigger" were cut off and Bonnie pulled it towards herself.

"Ewww this is disgusting!" She mumbled while putting the thing on the craters rimm. "So when this is like the movies..."

She held the thing towards the ground pulled the strange trigger what made the thing shoot a small stinger of sorts. She huffed her shoulders and began to aim at the strange people infront of her. One of them seemed to fight all the others who kept moving towards him slowly. Two tried to get behind him and he ducked into a crater.

A series of explosions came down and shredded a lot of the pale people but a lot kept going on even though a few had missing limbs.

"That are the same people sho killed Josh! Oh just you wait you little fucks!"

_But on this batlefield no one wins-_

She took the thing closer and aimed at the men. There were two thin straws and a big knob in the middle that moved between the straws and made a solid block. She began to shoot the thing and with strange popp-noises thin black lances cut through the air and into a body. But the man didn't go down, instead it twitched shortly and continued shambling forward.

"Oh great... Zombies. This is SO oldfashioned!"

Then something else came into view: It was a strange grey thing with tubes on its back that looked at her. Bonnie aimed at it too and shot it off the roof it had been sitting upon. She smiled at the thought of not being shot at and continued to shoot at the Zombies when the dirty man got up again. He was strangely shortgrown but murdered through the strange things until it came into a crater further away from Bonnie.

Then something big emerged: It was about nine feet tall and looked like a wandering chunk of meat. A line of holes was on the one side, a cannon and a ratlike head lay besides. Her eyes widened at the sight of a real freak as it began to shoot. Spikes with small hooks left the beestock-like holes and flew towards the guy, who stepped aside and rammed its rifle into its face and shot.

"Ewwww..." Was Bonnie's response to the digusting sight of its head being ripped apart. Then she heard something not far away, it was a mourn. She turned around to see a very pale person come towards her with a bloodcovered arm. She took the gun in her hands and fired it into the man what didn't make hom bother much. Right when she was about to say something the spikes in his body exploded and sent blood flying around.

Shehad her eyes closed and was thankfull for not having taken a few hits from its splattering blood.

"God I have enough of this place." She mubmled and then changed her voice into a scream: "EY! YOU! Come over here!"

---

So Bonnie was still alive. Her mind had found its way back into its body just in time. He sighed an moved towards the two other bio's. One had started to walk out of its crater and Max shot it into the "ammostorage" what made it scream in agony. He then ducked into a crater and covered his head for the upcoming explosion of shrapnell and blood. The other biomortar was stricken in its leg by a shot from Bonnie.

He nodded at the thought of her having a weapon when the immense explosion came. A whole group of the living dead was stricken and another sixpack was crippled by two of them going down forever. The other bio started to scream in its highpitched ratlike voice when Max heard its own ammobag, which lay behind their head and in the middle of their body, detonated. He stopped crying at the only thought that could still give him hope:

Bonnie.

He had rushed through the lines of the dead and had taken all enraged ones he had been able to find into their graves. But the majority of the undead was still unharmed. Whole dozens had come from sidestreets and connected with the remains of the surviving undead. He had made it once through a whole army of the dead and he hoped that his luck wouldn't leave him.

Max got up and ran for it: Running away was the only thing to do. But the adrenaline slowly went down again and his leg kept hurting. He just hoped it wasn't the main artery or vein because he would be done for if it was.

"Bonnie! Shoot me a way free!"

---

"Tara I'm sorry for-"

Her friend still had the angry look in her eyes when Hanna wanted to appologize what quickly silenced the injured girl. They were making their way towards the appartments while Hanna took her cellphone with the hurt arm and searched through its number memory. She wanted to press the call button when a car sped around a corner.

"Cops! We're saved!" Liz stated with rising happieness in her voice. The car came closer and stopped a few meters away from them and a woman got out of the driver's side.

"Hey do you-" Then she saw Chrystal. "Okay we'll take you to the hospital. But I don't know if we can take anyone of you with us."

The music wasn't as loud as before and no one tried to catch up with the lyrics anymore. They all alked towards the car when a male cop and another male got out. The cop ran towards them with a firstaid kit in his hands and helped them carrying Chrystal towards the car.

"Od you sit beside Helen!"

"Oww man do I have to?" The young man replied while giving Helen a nervous look.

"Yes you DO have to." Then the officer turned to Tara. "Okay we put her on our laps in the backseats okay?"

All of the girls nodded and Hanna was reliefed to not have to carry her much anymore. The officer took Liz's place and she got into the car. After that she got in, then the officer slowly moved backwards into the car while reaching Chrystal to the other girls. Then he sat down and made place for Tara to sit. Said blond girl closed the door and the female officer slowly drove on.

"I'm Helen and this Danny. The young man beside me is name Od." The woman spoke while looking at Chrystal through a small mirror.

"Yo ladies." Od said and turned to face them with his hat and "mask" still on. "Hi Tara." The blond lady raised her hand to greet him.

"You know each other?" Liz asked.

"Yep." Both Tara and Od replied.

"Mister Danny could you look at my arm please?" She held her injured upper arm high to him, which was the reason why she had hoped to sit beside him. He gave her arm a short glance.

"Yes in a moment I've got to look at the girl here first." He looked at Chrystal's belly and furrowed his brows. Hanna was pissed at that because her arm hurt like hell and everyone just cared about Chrystal. She understood that her arm wasn't as important as that injury but it didn't mean she was air for anyone.

"What happened to her?" Helen asked and Tara was again the one to speak.

"Hanna could you call Mrs P.?" Then she turned her head back to the ladycop. "We've been attacked by some strange creatures. There were huge manlike ones with inbuild cannons and guns and they shot her there. Hanna panicked, ran out of the crater and got hit by one of their grenades. I'm happy she isn't harmed badly."

Danny nodded while looking at the bandage, Helen was deep in thoughts and Tara began to stroke Chrystal's head which was easy because she rested with the bipod and head on Tara's lap.

"You carried her with a machinegun?" Helen asked. She sounded at least a little bit shocked.

"Yeah."

"Where did you get it from?"

Tara didn't know what to answer. She decid to say nothing about Bonnie and Max since everyone considered them dead. A tragic loss.


	42. Ode to Shego and Monitor problems

Sorry for the late update I had a lot of work lately including a practical course for four weeks and a few personal problems. However I'll write and update faster and more often from now on. Once again I'd like to thank anyone who reads my story.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Drakken wasn't fast so Shego gave him a little kick into the side. He groaned and fastened his pace. Small crystals began to fall from the heavens as a light wind blew from a side. Her healthy hand lay on his ribs while the injured arm wrapped itself around his throat. The night battled sunlight for dominance as a crimson sunset bathed the white snow into a strange colour.

Orange and bloodred.

Drakken's breaths were like little puffs in the cold air, they shone and vanished like a locomotive's steam. It somehow calmed her and pushed the pain she felt out of the spotlight of attention. Both mental and physical aches mattered a little less than before. She shivered and moved closer to his back which was warm and gave her a feeling of comfort. She tightened her embrace, moved a little closer, rested her head on his warm back and shut her eyes.

Shego would never admit it but she wanted to rest near his warm body like that forever.

Nothing mattered except his warmth in the embrace: That Drakken would leave her behind because she was a useless cripple wasn't important. It didn't matter that she was heavily injured because of his warmth. All problems, no matter if they came from the past or were to arise within the future, were not important. For once.

Shego could, for maybe once in her life, rest, leave everything behind and enjoy. No problems, no one tried to attack or use her, no one picked on her and no one wanted her to do something. Just warmth. It was wonderfull. For once it was okay to be weak. No one would ask a cripple to do martial arts after all.

She sighed happily and gave herself to his warmth. She knew Drakken wouldn't try anything on her in his current position. She had, even in her crippled state, a plasm-fist near his throat. Not that she wanted to use it but if he tried something on her...

_"Shego I've got an idea for a new sheme!" _He had always said. _"Shego steal me this, Shego steal me that!" _He had said. In that matter he hadn't been different from team Go. He had been as useless as Hego, had been half as egocentric as Mego but one little thing put him aside from them:

He had always been gratefull.

She remembered many of the times he had praised her. Had said thank you for her doing something. Had praised her for being a good thief. And sometimes he had just smiled his stupid smile when seing her. He had been gratefull for her being there. She had just been there and had got a thank you for it. It had felt wonderfull to see him happy. No, it had been wonderfull to see him happy because of her.

But these times were over.

He would never again praise her, smile at her or give her that warm feeling of being appreciated. He had praised her for stealing, fighting and throwing bio-plasm. And not for anything else. He had praised her for being usefull, effectice and efficient. But she couldn't perform her tasks with her current body. She was a cripple, a liability, a fourth wheel on the car.

Shego remembered all the times she had secretely smiled for Drakken being there. Yes, he was a moron. Yes, he was an incompetent. But he had always cared. In his domination-centered, childish and morinic ways, but he had always cared. He hadn't let her do overtime, hadn't enslaved her, hadn't forced her to anything. At first she had detested him for his overall lack of sense for reality and its boundaries.

But then, after some time, she had grown addictive of him. Not the "normal" addiction that things like heroin created. It was an emotional addiction. He had given her something no one had ever given her.

Care. Positive attention. A family that didn't use her. A place to belong to.

And he had given her these things for a very little price. Put her life at risk here, become evil, steal something there, save his ass at some times. It was everything she had done before. She was used to it. But there had been a difference. Drakken had _shown _her that he needed her. He had shown her he was gratefull. Team Go hadn't. It was that simple. Or at least she believed it to be that simple.

Her family had never given her even a thank you. The twins had been slightly gratefull for their older sister's care but the rest hadn't been. In fact, the twins had been the only reason she had been able to hold out for so long. But no more. Drakken would never again smile at her, he would never again give her the feeling of being... appreciated. He would leave the useless cripple to rot in a gossip. Tears quietly flowed from her cheeks.

Shego didn't notice the warmth change in position and consistency.

---

Drakken was done for. He had never believed carrying bodies would be that exhausting. His heart hammered like a jackhammer. Back in the days when he had been a doctor in training they had used dummies and different positions. On the other hand: Getting injured people to the doctors had always been the first aid people's job. Shego sat on his lap with her head on his right upper chest and he sat on a bench.

He wondered _how_ the woman on his lap could handle such injuries and stress. Shego had always been tough as nuts but two heavy gunwounds were too much for even her. He looked at her injured shoulder and the bandage that was wrapped around it. A huge bloodstain showed where the bullet had gone through her jumpsuit.

He had kept thinking about her while walking. It had kept his exhaustion at bay to marvel about the soft warmth of her lips and about her jumping and slashing. Her jumpsuit wouldn't look good on the next villain's convention: _"My assistant's been shot two times and pulled through." _The saying would either awe or disgust most of his competitors.

But he was the best of them all and he knew it well. No one had been so close to domination as he had been. And no one had have had a such astounding plan to foil the princess. But on the other hand, what villain would _let _his assistant get shot?

That brought him back to Shego. It had to be very hard to go through such an injury. And he still didn't understand why he had burrowed that Henry-man his hovercar. It would come in handy in his situation. And Shego was shortly before a fullscale collaps herself. He felt guilty for not having his car near when she truly needed it. Then he noticed something odd: Shego's breathing was irregular and sobby.

He bent forward to see her crying with closed eyes. He didn't know what to do for her and that concerned him even further.

"Shego? Does it hurt that much? Should I knit your leg again?"

His assistant looked up and at him with a surprised expression. More tears came when she tried to hide her face from him. Again Drakken wasn't sure about how to handle his female companion so he did what he was sure of: His hand went down her leg and carefully wrapped around her cut muscles. He felt the single strains obey as his fingers began to dance around the leg.

He danced circles over her leg and slowly put her foot upright what stretched the muscle. She took air in to make a painfull noise but in the same time his other hand rubbed the injured muscle what eased the ache. It moved downward while he gently pressed the strains and gave them order and direction.

Her muscle's strains got back into the order they have had before their cut while his hand stroke them flat. He turned the foot further and massaged the muscle at the same time. His hand shaped the strains, went by them and gave them guidance until the foot was upright and the strains were in order again. If the hardened blood that closed the wound to heal it wouldn't be there one could see a clear tunnel.

A tunnel that was cut through dozens of thin straws, lines and strains that once again were in their correct assembling. He slowly moved her foot up and down, left and right while keeping the muscle from falling into disorder. Every move was accompanied by a small and quick breath of his assistant. But it was better to hurt her a little now than to let her suffer much for long.

"Better?" She slightly nodded at that but kept her face hidden. He led his muscleguiding hand to her chin and pulled her face to sight.

"Oh yes I'm feeling like I could jump around." Shego rolled her eyes and smiled sarcasticly.

"Haha! Soon you will kick the princess's butt again and I- we will take over the world!" 

"I'll think about it." She replied with a faint smile. She looked beautifull and even a little bit happy. It was a wider smile than the one before and it was no sarcastic one. He hadn't seen her smile that way before and immediatly liked it. He attempted to wipe the tears from her face but she pulled away. He staggered for a moment and pressed on.

At first she looked shocked and angry when he put his hand on her cheek. But that quickly faded when he wiped the small strains away. Then he slowly dropped her leg on his lap and put the other hand upon her other cheek. Shego looked a little embarassed and blushed. He liked that sight as well. She shily looked away and that, together with her beautifull, rosy and pink cheeks made her look very sweet.

It was a wonderfull sight and feeling when she looked into his eyes for a few times. Even though she looked away very quickly when she noticed him looking back. He liked the moment and the carefull warmth of her cheeks. Her lips parted a little bit and looked warmer than they had the last time they had parted. He liked her lips and their full, warm and inviting forms. And once again there was that unfeelable and invisible wish to kiss her.

"Come on we got to go somewhere." She stated even though it didn't sound very convinced while putting her good hand upon his. She tried to move it away but quickly stopped by herself. Instead its fingers started to rythmically stroke over his hand in circles.

"You make me nervous!" She said in no usual voice. Drakken hadn't heard her insecure or nervous before and again he liked the new thing about her. He seemed to like all new things Shego showed him. Her eyes kept darting around a little faster in tries to avoid his look. But they always returned for short moments before flying away again.

"The princess!" She yelled and he immediatly withdrew his hands and scanned the area.

"Where?" There was no Kim Possible around. Multiple looks into any direction proved it.

He grumbled and showed Shego his back to make her climb up. A warm arm wrapped around his neck and throat when he took her injured one and laid it upon his shoulder. Then he grabbed her legs by the knees, moved up and groaned.

"I'll give you some endurance training. You're really not in shape!" She said in a serious tone but Drakken knew it was a joke. Or at least he believed it to be that way.

And someone else groaned: A man who slowly came closer from the opposite side of the street. Two other men came around a corner and came closer as well. Drakken started to feel uncomfortable. Three people came out of a shop nearby. Drakken started to worry. He noticed Shego gripping a little harder as he walked forward. He moved past a small sidestreet and noticed two more persons. His guts groaned in a mean way. He hadn't noticed them before and suddenly they were there.

"Zombies! They're fucking zombies! Drakken run into that alley!"

"What?"

"They're just like from the movies the twins always watched!"

He wanted to say something to deny her. Zombies. What a ridicoulos thought. But the people came closer and they didn't look friendly so he walked to where Shego pointed her finger at. They were encircled and two persons walked into their path. Contact would be inevitable since they were as fast as Drakken was. And so they were surrounded.

"Shego I don't like what this looks-"

With a loud vrooom a greenish something flew towards one of the men in their path. His chest was hit and he stumbled back but didn't fall over. Drakken was surprised since no person had ever kept standing after such a blast and fastened his pace. But no matter how fast he'd be there was a woman in his way. Her skin was pale and the hair dry. But it wasn't the somewhat exotic and interesting pale skin Shego had.

His guts groaned harder and he felt Shego's healthy leg move against his own rhytmically to make him walk faster. The woman raised her arms and was only more thirty feet away. Then Drakken saw something else, something that turned his unsettlement into fear:

Her eyes were nothing but empty, dull and shallow white balls.

More people came from all sides while he kept walking as fast as he could. But it wouldn't be fast enough to get away without Shego's help. Hungry moans and the unsteady crunches of pressed snow were his companion. Shego threw one of her green bolts into the woman's face. It didn't lit up in fire or explode but was knocked back like from a boxers fist. Drakken hadn't paid much attention to Shego's bolts before but in that moment his perception was clear like never before.

His brain calculated distances, speeds, angles of attacks and many other things without him really noticing it. The subconscious mind registrated Shego's bolts and their vroooomlike noises while he walked on. Her body pressed itself neatly against his when she shot and moved away when she got swing. She always moved forward when he stepped forward and moved back when his frontfoot got up again.

Her breathing increased as she lowered her arm and rested it on his shoulder. Her injury must have drained a lot of her endurance from her. A small sidewalk came closer to view: It was thin and didn't have much space between the two buildings that limited it. But there was no other choice. And as Drakken walked past the small and invisible borderline in his head and outside of it he noticed something:

He and his assistant were working as a union. As one thing, one walking person. She shot, he walked. It was odd how close they had been in the past hours. Shego had made confession about him, had cried and had been shot. He had almost kissed her and had seen her smile nicely for the first time. And she had given him a wonderfull little kiss on his cheek. If the strange people and her injuries wouldn't be he'd count it as a great day.

The inviseible border had marked the end of their former lives. And it maybe marked the beginning of a new one.

---

He came closer to the two teenagers and the crippled Dark. They had been found and two teams had been taken out. But maybe there was a profit to gain. He scanned the area for something worthy of being bartered about and found it. He walked closer to the small pink thing until he felt what it was, or had been once: A small animal.

It seemed to have had some sort of intellect before its meeting with the never. Maybe it could still be usefull. Maybe there was a profit in sight. The two humans hadn't seen or heard him which was no wonder: They were mourning over something. He wanted to _see _but the taint upon them was stronger. The Dark lay still, stunned by its own weapons strike.

He pondered over the weapon: It seemed to be highly pleased which would be the only reason for it to willingly switch its owner. He was surprised to see that it had allowed a teenager to use it. If a Dark could only barely have handled it a teenager-

But stop... there was something of interest. Something of profit. Something from the arcane times, the times that HE had wanderend earth. Something blue was in the young male, just as something black. For a long time he had not felt a personnel interest. Maybe a such discovery would be worth a short break of the rules. He walked close enough for them to feel his presence, which was very close.

As always his first sentence was accompanied by a noise similar to someone taking a ghostly, long and very cold breath in. A small cloud of steaming air

"Haaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh..."

The female shook from the cold it gave away, but didn't notice she was freezing, and looked up. The blond male sobbed and hid his head in her shoulder while pulling her closer. The blond male wasn't able to speak. So he heralded his interest for the pink animal by looking at it for a short moment to the female. For a short moment he had to think about how to speak. It had been a long time since he had spoken in the traiter's tongue, if one didn't count the dropship and the short transmission among the record.

"I have an offer to make..."

---

Albert listened closely but there were no other sounds or noises. And that was a good sign. He gave Betty a thumbs up and walked through the door like someone who was completely oblivious to what had happened a few moments ago. No sounds menat no crawlers, no enraged and, hopefully, no Dark. Betty gave the dead man a short glance before following him. The glance gave her away.

"Look Betty I know this is harsh stuff but try to not bother him much okay?"

"What was the red glow in his eyes?"

"Hatred."

"And...hm."

Betty spoke no further. His explanation had been cryptic and clear at the same time. He loved it when people could interpret much into his sayings. The empty corridors still frightened him to no end and he didn't bother to hide it. Betty kept walking closely after him what looked, in an untrained person's eyes, like the stupid and numb "follow him and don't think" kind of walking.

But it wasn't just that. Instead she walked after him and watched his back. He had a gun, and with that he could attack anything infront of them. If she went first she would be spotted first and without a weapon she couldn't shoot back. So they moved on through an empty hall. A huge statue of a man and a book marked the room's middle and blocked view on the opposite door.

"Look." Betty spoke and pointed at a small sign with an arrow that pointed towards a door.

" 'Security: Ground floor'. We should have a look."

Betty opened the door and jumped back like he had done. But there was no attack. Instead there was another greyish dark corridor with a lot of halogenic tubes for light. His feeling of dread intensified since he knew one thing: There could never be only one an enraged. He patted her shoulder to make her stop and rushed through the door.

He sprinted backwards while aiming at the wall above the door and its corners. There was nothing at all. Then he spun around and searched every ventilation shaft with his scope. Nothing again. Betty walked behind him in a sneaky way but he heard her. He put an index finger infront of his lips and made a shhh-noise. She nodded and remained quiet.

Something was wrong. But it wasn't wrong in a way he knew. And he knew that if one didn't know what to do or expect one was dead meat. He tried to remember any failure, any mistake and any time he had learned something. There was no matchable experience and that was very bad.

"What's wrong?" A soft female voice whispered into his ear.

"I don't know what and just that is the wrong thing."

No one and nothing moved except for two figures in an empty hallway. They stood infront of a door and slowly pressed it open. A room with many monitors came into view. Beeps and bops as well as the krrrrt-noises of processing computers could be heard. It was barely lit what made the monitors light precious and rare. A small note lay on the table. Betty picked it up and both read it quietly.

_in my head/ here/ can't run away/ should have left/ can't run/ I'll be found/Jack won't come back/banished on tape/ To-13-07657  
_

Albert made a summary: A lonely enraged, a cryptic note about someone being harassed and a long number. Something in his head sizzled: A memory. But he couldn't put a finger on which one it was.

"I say it's a video from one of the cameras. I'll have a look."

He nodded and opened one of three drawers for the security personnel. Nothing but the small screeching of the small door and Betty's typing could be heard. Nothing could be heard and nothing could be seen. At least not something of importance. Again his head sizzled at the thought of no sound and no sight but he couldn't remember. So he opened the drawers and looked. There was:

A colt pistol, a blue security officers dress, some ammo and two batons. He took the pistol and ammo as well as the two batons and walked towards the monitordesks. Betty was done with typing and showed her result: A video of about two dozen seconds length:

There was a corridor to look at for almost all of the time. It was empty, shallow and welllit. Albert was about to sigh and turn it off when he spotted something. It was a thin line of smokelike black fog that went through the edge of sight. It was there for a second and moved out of sight as soon as he put his sight on it. He knew such things weren't possible but it seemed to know when he looked.

Betty replayed the video since she hadn't seen anything. But now that Albert knew what to look for the whole thing was hard to miss. The thin lines moved again like a strain or flow of pitchblack fluid. He tried to keep his eyes on it but it moved away. His outer "part" of vision could see the thing but anytime his conscious part of it wanted to look it simply evaded his looks. It was like a bubble of water that one couldn't hit with a pencil.

But the whole thing seemed to feel or notice his looks through the monitor. He played the video again. It was twenty minutes old. It was the past but somehow it could move when he looked at it even though the movement should already have happened twenty minutes ago. Anytime he played the video again it moved in different ways: It was avoiding his direct sight but lured his indirect attention. It was a parodoxon.

It was _in _time.

He could feel something inside him being drawn towards the black strains while his most internals begged him to leave. And then the screen turned black. Before his mind could get the image his guts already knew what had happened: They had unleashed something from the video, freed something that should have been kept imprisoned. The video was inside the past but somehow the strains could conciously move when he looked at it. It was a rift of time. It was _in _time.

The strains moved through different corridors everytime he played the video. The angle of view was the same but the cameras were different. He had found a rift in time. A connection, a link. He had unleashed something from _in _time. He had brought it back. The screen went black and he suddenly grabbed Betty by the collar and shoved himself infront of her. Then he covered her eyes.

"Wha-"

"Don't look! Just don't look!"

The temperature dropped immensly while he covered her vision and shut his own. It was no real cold but simply what the human him interpreted it to be. And as the bodies reaction they shivered. A dark noise of blackness came from the monitor when al hairs on his chest and nekc stood upright.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..."

He felt himself forgetting things. He forgot his ex-wife's name, he forgot what size his shoes had and he forgot where the door was.

"Betty whatever happens don't look!"

Before he realized what happened the entire room was almost black, the door open and a surprised Betty held his hand. He ran out of the room and as far away as he could. But he knew one thing: They couldn't run away from time. They couldn't run from the past.


	43. When memories vanish

The night was slowly coming down upon Middleton while a lonely car made its way towards the outskirts of said city. Two people sat inside: Both were female, both were grown-ups and both were tired. One was a doctor without a coat and the other was an unemployed saleswoman. The one was pissed and the other was curious. The vehicle drove on.

"So Connie is there something you want to talk about?"

Connie had taken the frontpassengers seat during a short stop and had her arms crossed. The eyes were directed towards her window and the face wore an expression somewhere between sadness and anger. To Mrs. Possible it was a clear sign: The girl had problems. Connie just made "pfht" noise and crossed her arms a little more.

"It's not usual for a girl like you to be so agressive."

"So what?"

Angela was surprised at how much venom lay in the girl's voice. It was clear she wanted to look tough and rejective.

"There's got to be something big on your mind if you're so fed up."

Again Connie made a rejective sound. Angela sighed and decid to take the direct aproach.

"I know you have a big problem and you think being hatefull to anyone will help it but that's wrong. That'll-"

"So you say I'm a psycho, HUH?" She spat back.

"No I'm saying you want to talk about something. That will help." Connie threw her arms up and replied with a lot of sarcasm:

"Oh OF COURSE you're the pro around here!"

"I studied psychology. And I can feel something's eating you up from inside. And no matter how much you yell, shout, scratch or kick it won't go away. The longer you keep it the bigger it grows. Talk to me, please."

Connie just looked at her. Angela had almost won. "You're not my mom." The brunette looked away. Hurt and sadness were on her face.

"You don't like your mom. I can understand-"

"YOU don't understand anything! You don't have a useless moron as mother! You don't have to compete with-WITH-ARGH!"

Angela got angry and frustrated at Connie's mean behaviour. But she didn't show it since it wouldn't get her a key into the young lady. But at least she had got her to drop a bit of information. With that she could slowly work inside the girl's interiour and fix what was wrong in there. Or at least release some stress. She'd try the mother-topic first since she had named it so "willingly".

"What is it about your mother? Is something wrong?" Connie looked at her while sadness marked her features before looking away.

"I'm not your mother, that's right, but I'm willing to listen to your problems. Maybe that's the difference between her and me."

Connie looked at her a little less rejective and insecure before staring away again. She hid in her shell. But hiding was the wrong thing to do.

"It's not wrong to ask for help. And I know you need some. I'm just trying to release something from you that needs to be thrown out."

The brunette looked at her once again. She seemed at least a little bit interested.

"Sometimes things too big for us to handle happen Connie. These things put too much weight on your shoulders for you to carry all alone . And I think you try to release some of that weight by yelling at people. But that won't help you, Connie. No one will want to help you then."

"But... what do you mean with helping me? I don't need help." Connie sounded more like she wanted to convince herself of believing it.

"I want to get stress out of you. Humans are like a cake. If you put a huge piece of something on it the pieces get crushed. Things like niceness, care and love for example. They are being crushed by hate and pain, Connie. And that's not good. No one wants to eat squished strawberry cake, right? And no one wants to consist of smashed feelings and alike."

"Uh-huh."

"I can fix that. But we've got to take that weight off you to do so. And if the weight is off we can take what's left inside you and put it back into order. And the rest that was missing all the time can grow inside there because you give it shape and direction. But no one will want to help you if you yell at people. There are other ways to get that out of you."

"And... what are those other ways supposed to be?"

"If you tell me about your problems we can find a solution for them. There's always a solution for anything. You just have to find it. And I want to help you to find yours. But you have to help me to help yourself. I'll give you my hand and guide you. But you've got to take it."

Angela extended her hand to the woman. Connie eyed it carefully and seemed undecid. After some time she shook her head.

"The offer stands Connie. I'm always here to help you. I'm a doctor and I'm not getting paid to hurt people, right?"

Connie laughed at the joke what made her look a lot more like her own self. It made her look happy.

---

A mess. That was her mindset when a wellknown pair of eyes opened. Vision was blurry and strange, colors mixed, up and down were inverted. Then slowly everything got back into shape. Something orange and skinny moved infront of her eyes and blurrily waved around. Thin parts of it danced around when she realised it was something that belonged to her.

Sausages, a glove or maybe something else? It was not clear. White and yellow balls flurred around when she noticed herself being moved. Or something alike. Maybe just everything around her moved? Who knew? She didn't. There was no sense of gravity, emotion or belonging. It was strangely numb. Her body, if it was still hers, wasn't there. Or there was at least no hint of its existence.

The lights moved up and down, or was it left and right? A noise came, something she couldn't remember to have heard before. Kim got up. Or whatever was near. Nothing made sense and everything made blurry things. A noise rose in what could have been her head. She believed to move around but couldn't prove it to herself since everything was kinda numb and dull.

The noise got louder, it grew uncomfortably in her head. The fleshy orange thing waved around a little more until shapes came into view. Lines, scratches and contures gave it shape until she recognised what it certainly was: A hand. She observed the strange thing as it slowly became sharper in shape and got its details. It stopped being blurry after some time and she could almost feel it move when she saw it move.

And the noise grew louder. It was almost like a choir that made a steadily haaa-haaa-haaa. The noise in the middle was louder then the others and more dramatic while the last was the second loudest. It grew louder in intensity and rapidness. But nothing made sense. Blurry things, red spots, memories, pictures and stuff flew or hovered around. it was too much to keep, to much to see in total.

Too much to remember.

She tried to look around what made the blurry stuff become more... blurry. It didn't help so she simply stopped with looking around when two absolutely clear things came into sight. They were not in order, not the way they should be and they shouldn't be there at all. They shouldn't exist. Something was wrong within the strange place she was in.

The "choir" became louder when she started to hear whispers among the blurry stuff. It was the only noise she could hear within a place that her senses denied. It didn't exist, it wasn't there. Or at least that was what she believed to be a fact. A chello started to play among the strange choir what made the whole thing a lot more odd. Kim suddenly remembered herself playing chello as a young child.

But the image of her sitting on her fathers lap with a huge woodmade thing resting at his leg vanished. It was driven away by the noises. She believed to feel uncomfortable when she noticed her hand starting to go all blurry again. Something "came" closer: Two things she couldn't define, two things that just didn't fit.

Two things that came together with the choir: Two red orbs with a black thing came closer while her hand slowly vanished when she wanted to call for Ron. But he wasn't there. He wouldn't help. There was nothing she could try to navigate with: No hard points, no materia and no Ron. The noise grew louder in intensity and length as something happened: The red things drew everything out of vision until there was nothing but themselves.

She wanted to move away but couldn't. There were no legs to run away with. And both blackness and red came closer as she remembered the most random things. Her mom baking an applepie, her brothers building their first rocket and Ron tripping over his shoes. And everytime a such picture came up it vanished infront of the two red orbs and their blackness.

Only blackness and the pictures of her memories lay around her when it came closer. And the noise grew louder. It was indefinable but yet there, it could be heard but was no noise, it was a contrast in itself, a defiance of the laws of nature. And yet it was "there" in a place where "there" was not defined. But the red things made the noise drown out.

She tried so hard to get away when Kim forgot her name, her age and who she actually was. But they did not stop and the noise died out. Something grew out of the noise, something that was different and new. It seemed to fight blackness when something happened.

The dying noise was her heartbeat.

---

Richard was in a bad mood and a huge headache stood in his head. It grew stronger until he couldn't aim correctly anymore. He stumbled out of his little sittingplace and blurrily walked towards the bathroom. If one could still call it a such. He yanked left and right with his thompson clanking against his hip.

The bathroom was not more than a destroyed wall's corner, a mirror and a toilet. But for some odd reason he knew the toilet wasn't important. He stimbled across the mirror and felt his age wear him down. He was the last one with ammunition at all and the chief was making plans for evacuation. They hadn't been able to keep the socalled "undead" people from entering cityscape.

In fact they hadn't done more than pick out single ones with their fire. It was like as if one tried to stop flowing water with papersheets. One could hold a little but the mass got through. The closer he got to the mirror the stranger his body felt. Or to be exactly: He stopped feeling his body at all. But strangewise he wanted the mirror to be close.

As Richard yanked his head up he saw something he hadn't expected to see. He saw a man in the mirror that was not him. And as their eyes made contact something he couldn't describe happened. It was strange, odd and innormal. A voice entered his head when he saw a machinepistol and a few stripes being held towards him.

_Necropolis...thy service art needed... young one  
_

---

Ron's head was way too blurry to do anything when he woke up. But he felt odd, like as if something was happening that shouldn't exist. He shook his head and opened the eyes to see something very bad: The black man stood infront of Kim and... did something. His left hand was stretched and pointed at her head while Kim didn't do anything. He tried to get up when he heard a noise: A slowly dying thud-thud.

It was her heartbeat and it was dying. Whatever the man did to her was bad and hurt her. But his body didn't move no matter how hard he tried. Kim would die and he couldn't stop it. A feeling of dread came. He knew that feeling but there was no memory attached to it. He couldn't remember where he had felt it. He simply couldn't remember.

Then he felt something odd going through his own body. The numbness left and his limbs started to move. He felt like in a dream and like as if he was just an observer when his hands picked some gun from the ground. He saw it being pointed at the man through his eyes. But where they still his own? He thought he dreamt as it began to rattle in his hands.

The man turned aside, pulled his left arm towards the huge gun he held and aimed it at him. But he didn't put the huge thing into his shoulder. He shot the gun from his hip while holding it at its bipod's left straw and its grip. Two noises filled the room as his body moved without him in charge. A noise of ripping fabric and a strange tatt. The one was bestially raw and deadly while the other was... odd.

He couldn't say it otherwise while he wondered why his mind saved such strange details. His own gun and the blackened man's monster fought a duell of noise when he saw, but not felt, his own body jump aside. At first both parts of the firefight had fired from their hips. But in the moment the muscles of his body stretched his weapon was being raised upwards.

He was a mere passenger, an observer of his own bodies actions. He didn't feel anything but only saw through his bodies eyes. Small black things raced by him, sliced the air, stole its existance and pulled thin greyish lines after them when he saw his "own" gun. A halfcircle with a small upstretching straw stood at its front. A small block with a hole about as long and thick as the straw stood behind.

He noticed that it didn't have a shoulderpiece or one that was folded in. The straw vanished and made the block be complete. His fingers moved without any feeling as the gun shot. Ron didn't know much about guns and the only one he has had in his hands had been the shotgun. But one thing even he the pacifist knew: Guns weren't so easily shot in fullauto.

But oddly the gun's muzzled didn't climb much. It got back up after every tatt but got back before the nex one came. He saw his hands moving upward while the halfed halfcircle was withing the black man. It shot and shot while he saw its fine yellow muzzleflash. Holes were punched into the black man but he didn't care and fired on. Grey lines flew past him when he saw himself impacting on the ground.

There was only one thing Ron could feel: Cold. An immense and somehow unphysical feeling of cold that went into his mind and body.

The blackened man stopped firing while holes lay in his belly and chest. They weren't big since they were smaller than a childs fist but bigger than a finger. Ron felt a dull and hollow impression of his arm when he got up and walked forward. His feeling slowly returned when he moved forward. It was finally him in charge of his own body again.

The whole action had lasted about one and a half seconds. He ran to Kim and picked her up since she had fallen to her back when the man had released his arm. The closer he came to the man the bigger the feeling of dread and cold grew. His feeling returned when he opened her eyelids and saw something really unsettling.

Her eyes were dull white balls and her body was numb. He hecticly pressed his head on her chest and sighed. There was still heartbeat. It was faint, slow and weak but it was there. He looked at the man and saw his holes. They were slowly getting smaller, just like when someone punched into a puddle and watched the water getting back into its former place. Just that in a slower way.

"Follow in his name!"

Ron was surprised when he felt his mouth move since he hadn't wanted to say what had been said. Another odd thing was Kim's hand gripping around his. A strange feeling, almost like from an electric shock, made him twitch. Her body got up and released his hand. Ron got back to the place where he had waken up at first. Something odd happened.

He saw strang people in soldiers suits standing around him lying on a desk. One of them held a dagger in his hand and thrust it down. A flash of light came before his eyes and the desk was as empty and shallow as it had been before. He picked a small pocket from the ground. It was three yellow-brown pockets with buttoned tops. They were packed together and at their back were two small hooks.

Without thinking he put the small hooks between his belt and the pants it held. They hadn't been made for his mission clothes but the pocket still held right and didn't slip around. For a brief moment he wondered why he took it but the answer came quickly: Inside were stripes for his new gun. Kim stood behind him with the same dull emptieness in her eyes. But they were focused on him.

He stepped left and right and saw her head moving among. Ron shook his head an walked out of a door while giving the blackened man a last glance. Right at the moment Ron got through the door his holes were no longer there. Steps came from a sidecorridor and people ran out of it. Ron's body raised the gun and fired into them on fullauto.

He was shocked to see himself do something like that. There had been no proof of their hostility and still he fired. The gun rocked back and forth but remained remarkably stable while firing. Two men dropped to their feet while another one dropped into a wall. They all had axes, clubs or knives. But he had an easily firable gun. Gun over knife.

Two remained unharmed after his first burst of five rounds but didn't last after two single shots. He gave a look to behind himself and saw the man slowly moving after him. Two more people came from the corridor and were gunned down from a body that Ron was no longer in charge of. He didn't shoot out of his hip but aimed strangely calm.

Kim still ran after him in a strange form of numb carelessness. Three men came closer and one slashed at him before Ron could gun him down. He jumped sideways, turned around and shoot into the man's back. Said man had his axe stuck in the ground and while trying to pull it up again. The shots into his back made him plummet to the ground with a muffled "ufff".

The other two tried to encircle and stall him while the blackened man came closer. Ron realised they had to work for the blackened men. One made a vertical slash and Ron blocked it by holding his gun horizontally. His body sensed something before Ron saw it happen: The other man stroke from behind at the same time. His own body dropped the gun what the first attacker stumble forward in surprise. Ron turned away, evaded the second man's blow and took the gun. He fired it from the hip and mowed them down.

And the blackened man came closer. The cold, which was the only thing Ron could feel in his watcher's keep, grew stronger. And Ron ran into the corridor while hearing shouts and commandos. The two teenagers came through a door and entered a small yard. Ron saw guns being pointed at him and jumped into the snow. Kim did the same and landed beside him.

"Black man!" Someone yelled and guns blazed up. Lances cut the air and flew through something black that came through the door. Holes of various sizes were blown into him, or it, as he walked forward an raised his gun. Terrible and infernalic hammerings heralded his monster's shots. Ron saw people jumping into the snow while a few others kept shooting. After a few moments the man stood there like a monument or statue and didn't move.

A hand came into his view and he took it. Kim got up while he was pulled to his feet. A huge monster of a man stood before him and looked at him in an undefinable way. He wore a black tank top, pants of the same color and two black boots. Ron stared at the man and the man stared back. Ron noticed a pickup standing in the yard and people jumpin upon it.

"Parallels to subject zerozeroeight detected." The huge man said in an oddly emotionless and clear voice.

"S'cuse me Mister?"

A woman yelled from the pickup: "Get into the car!"

Ron took Kim's hand and looked at the blackened man. He could see a small strain of light coming through a lamp in the corridors ceiling. It shone through the holes but slowly vanished. He ran towards the car and sat down on a bench with Kim beside him. The huge man took seat infront of him and kept watching the young blond teenager.

Ron had seen two slightly strange things: On the cars side stood: "Honk if your dead" and the front had a sign that said: "Pimp-Wagon"

He knew it would be a long night.


	44. Different shades of reality

Henry stood infront of a huge garage's door. It was labelled: "Parking: Level 1-3 of Middleton Mall." He got out of his car and looked at the huge door. His entire body kept freezing and he didn't want to stay in darkness anyway. The huge blackened door didn't open and there was no sign of a smaller door nearby. Then he spotted a sign:

"Closed due to maintenance."

"Oh great Henry. You see the big stuff but not what lies right ahead of you." He slapped his forehead and began to sprint back to the car. A small greenish light rose from its cockpit when he wanted to jump on its side. A series of noises came from its keypad until the steering wheel turned around and its speed lever hammered downwards.

"Autopilot. Well... Mr. Drakken seems to want his toy back."

He walked through the snow while the sun slowly sunk down. It was freezingly cold and he knew that not only the low temperatures created that feeling. _They_ had to be close as well. He felt a strangely gripping feeling in his guts and began to sprint forward. The mall's outer wall went about twohundred meters further and then made a turn to the right. Small lanterns lit the way like small islands of safety.

But he knew that it was a lie.

Darkness itself seemed dangerously alive when the lights went out. One by one the small orbs went down when their light bulbs popped. Sometimes small pieces could be seen like small sparks that lost their warmth. It was comsumed by darkness. His breathing got louder and harder when he realised that he was being followed. But everytime he turned around there was nothing to see. Nothing. The Never.

Houses that had been seeable were covered by blackness just as huge parts of the sky around him. The light rendered the only areas of fragile safety like pockets of air under water. But just as much as bubbles vanished from under water light itself could vanish. And those that were born from darkness rose from it like pillars of evilness. Henry knew them well.

Hatred.

Red flares of hate glowed through the darkness while shapes manifested within and through the growing blackness. Their "eyes" flared at their would-be victim and he knew what happened to those that had not fled in time. "In time" was the important term of consideration. If one fled from the Dark there was no "In time". No way out, nowhere to hide and nothing that could shield one from their hatred.

Nothing could withstand them in time. They had "time" itself on their side. And so Henry began to run for his dear life. No one could outgun the Dark and no one could escape them. They were the perfect killer. He knew them well. His eyes could barely see the Dark since there was nothing to see. They were a despoilment to the human eye. One could barely notice the lack of "something" where they stood.

And even to notice that one had to focus very hard.

Henry ran like many others before him. And he hoped to not be one of those that hadn't made it.

---

The chief was deeply concerned. He had to abandon the idea of using the unfinished building as an outpost of defence. The GJ agent and Goff took the unconsious Richard and brought him to the "ramp". A flatbed truck drove towards them and smashed several undead persons. Their heads popped like melons. At first they had come in uncoordinated chunks.

But as soon as the truck stopped they revieled their destructive potential. One might think that trucks, houses or walls would be fortresses against the undead. But the chief knew that these people were wrong. They had an advantage mankind didn't have: The advantage of emotionless agression and a cold and anaylitc mind.

They walked towards the truck's wheels while the chief jumped down. They blocked the wheels with their bodies and gripped them with their hands. They worked as one single mass. Any member of that mass worked for their greater good:

Food.

An engine roared and the wheels moved forward. At first the biologic wall was too thick but then the first arms were pulled under the monstrous wheels. Sickening sounds of snapping bones and ritting flesh fought against the engine's howl.

The chief saw hands on the flatbed's loading space's edge. The first beings pulled their rotten bodies up. The truck was stuck for a moment and just that moment was enough to give the living dead an opening. The truck was stuck, too stuck to move forward. The driver swore loudly and hammered upon the steering wheel when the machine gave up. The engine died down and didn't jump on again.

"Everyone: Abandon ship!" He yelled while giving Richard's Mp to Goff who started shooting it into upcoming heads.

He pointed to a small corridor between the building's wall and the truck. He and the GJ agent took the unconsious Richard and jumped down. Goff followed suit and shot an undead who tried to get into their way. Then they went forward while the driver jumped onto the loading space of the huge truck. Hungry hands gripped for him as he jumped down and followed his mates.

They ran while undead persons walked after them. The chief knew they had barely made it out once more. His entire body shivered at the memory of what had happened when some of his firends hadn't made it out. They had died because of his incompetence what made him lower his head in shame and anger. He gave the driver a short look: It was a shortgrown man in a yellow worker's suit and a samecolored helmet.

Undead people turned towards them from all sides as one mass and tried to encircle them.

"Shoot us a path free!" He yelled to their only armed member. They had one machinepistol and they had teeth, hands and feet. But they had raw numbers on their side and almost invulnerable bodies. Goff shot single fire and aimed at legs and heads. A small passage was shot free and they sped through. After a few moments the chief looked over his shoulders and saw a terrifying thing:

Hundereds over hundreds of willing murderers. Some of them held their arm's stumps like trophies of their service. Service for their greater good: Food. A see of whiteballed eyes followed a the members of a dying race: The human kin.

---

Kim looked around: A small house made of lumber stood in the dark night. She noticed a small blueish hue around her entire body and walked towards the small barrack. Screams were heard from it so she sped up her pace. It was odd: Everything around the hut was blurry and nothing but blackness. Chunks of earth hung around the building and there was no "ground".

She jumped from island to island until she stood infront of the hut. It looked shaggy, old and rotten with broken windows and a bashed door. A huge sign hung on top of it:

19

Her stomach growled but she ignored it. She stepped through it and saw a bewildering picture. The hut seemed much larger than how it had looked from the outside and the walls were covered with ticks, bugs and other insectoid and parasitic creatures. They kept moving like a single mass and covered any looks upon the walls themselves. Something huge and threatening stood in the middle of the room.

It was furry, black and dangerous. Huge and terrific teeth stood away from its gaping maw and huge bloodcovered claws came out of its massive paws. A creek came from behind her and she turned to look. The door was shut and insects covered it. A huge thing with tentacles and strange teethlike mouthtools sped towards her upper neck. Kim barely made a backflip in time.

The huge and furry thing turned towards her. It's eyes were reddish flares of pure hatred and disgust. Tentacles came from its head and stretched towards her when it ran. It looked like a weird, disgusting and dangerous parody of a monkey. It roared loudly and moved forward while its huge fists made craters in the wooden floor. It creeked and buglike things were revieled under the hole.

Kim braced herself when she saw something: It was a small boy who sat near a crushed wooden bed and cried. His head was hidden between his knees he held his hands up. It looked like a futile defensive gesture against the huge creature. Said thing came closer and hammered a fist forward. She jumped over the thing and kicked into its halfway exposed brain. Tentacles wirred around and tried to grip her. They failed.

The creature roared in pain and anger while the door's tentacle sped into it's belly. It roared again but Kim sensed it was through nothing but fear. Its eyes lost their red haze and revieled a frightened and lonesome creature. Kim began to pity the "monkey".

She pitited the creature that had been abused for evil.

Huge fleshhooks came out of the strange tentacle and rammed into the monkey. It screamed and tried to get the tentacle out but only empaled its hands on the fleshhooks. She ran to the small boy and took him into her arms. He began to cry louder like as if expecting an attack but put his hands around her.

"Shhhhhh. Don't worry everything will be fine!"

"No it always ends in death! Run!" The boy answered. Kim made a scowl and ran with him in her arms.

The monkey was being pulled towards the door and it's wall while more and more bugs took a different shape. They made way for a huge mouth that greedily awaited its food. The tentacle was in it's unseeable middle which was nothing but blackness. It pulled the monkey closer and ignored its loud screams. The boy began to wheep loudly in her arms.

Her eyes met the ones of the monkey. It literrally begged her for help but Kim knew it could no longer be helped. There were no windows and the huge insectoid walls came closer. The house had been a trap but the boy had to be saved. The monkey was being pulled closer and the huge mowl closed around it. Huge teeth rammed into it and skinned it alive. Kim took her eyes away and kicked the monkey forward.

But the wall didn't break like it should have done. Instead the mowl pulled faster and closed entirely. Small and weak bangs erupted from its interiour but didn't break the huge and teethy "hug". Kim was shocked since her plan hadn't worked. All of her plans had worked. It was an unwritten rule that her plans worked. It wasn't fair. It wasn't possible. And the cynic thruth was: She could do anything, even the impossible, but yet just the impossible didn't work.

Strangewise the whole thing didn't work out. The walls came closer and the huge mouth opened once more.

"A trap! Oh god no!"

It was too late. She didn't see one thing: The kid started to smile wickedly and its grip got intenser. She made a few steps back and looked around: There was no way out. The huge tentacle moved around in the air and she knew that it was searching for her. Panic gripped around her heart for the very first time of her life: It was an unbearable feeling. Her instincts came to life. Any reasonable thought died.

The windows? There were none. Ventilation shafts? The same. Doors? None. Her eyes widened for the first time. Her heart started to hammer like it had never done before. Her teeth began to snap against each other and made clacking noises. She gripped the kid closer but not from protective instinct but from pure fear instead. Said kid smiled and slowly released its grip. Kim didn't sense it.

Everything stopped making sense when she realised one horrible thing: She would die in this horrible place. A tentacle came closer but she didn't see it since she started crying. Kim hoped Ron to be there but not even he could help her anymore. The kid began to do something but she didn't see it anymore.

Her arms wrapped around its tigh and pressed it forward. It's wicked smile vanished and Kim saw something she hadn't seen before. It's eyes were nothing but red flares. She threw it forward to the tentacle and it wrapped around the young kids waist. It began to scream loudly and tried to get free but it didn't work.

Blackness came through its eyes and manifested around the reddish flares. The kid was being pulled into the maw. It was Ron at the age of ten.

Kim realised she had given Ron to the thing. She stared at her hands and the blackened figure that manifested infront of her. She saw Ron struggling against it and his furcap fell down. The symbol of wannaweep was on it. Kim began to cry.

"Kim! KP! NO!"

It would devour him alive. A second tentacle rammed through his ribcage and its fleshspikes rammed through his lungs, organs and abdomen. He made a bloody scream while blood ran from his mouth and a tentacle cut one of his legs off. It fell into the lower part of the maw and got pulled into the strange blackness within it. Kim began to sob while she stared at her hands. She had murdered Ron in cold blood, she had used him to buy a few more seconds for herself.

"Ron! NO! I-"

The blackened figure suddenly moved a part of itself upwards. She began to cry louder and sobbed.

"KP... It's okay-I-I lov-"

Another tentacle went through his brain and silenced him forever. He was pulled into the hole, the tentacles withdrew and came for her. She cried, sobbed, screamed and crouched into a phetal position. She felt horrible about herself and the world. She had murdered the one she loved. Slimy and disgusting things wrapped around her wrists and pulled her towards someting. But she didn't see it anymore.

Something sharp had wrapped around her head at eyehight and its thorns had cut her eyes and nose but she didn't feel much of it. The pain inside her heart was stronger. The pain of having betrayed the one she loved. The pain of abusing him for her own naked life.

"I love you too Ron- I'm so sorry I love you-"

Something wrapped around her mouth and muffled her screams when she felt something sharp enter her head through one of the eyesockets. The respective eye's bloody and stumpy remains were squished or popped. Then the sharp pain of a thousand needles coming through her head from the inside rivalled against the pain of something tearing her skin away before she finally became unconsious.

And the blackened man was still watching.

---

Angela kept watching the redhead and her blond boyfriend. He kept shaking her madly and yelled at her. His face was marked by panic while hers showed no emotion. Her body was wiry and dull in his arms and her head kept swinging back and forth. She mumbled something about a trap when the blonde pulled her into a deep hug. He began to cry.

"KP wake up, please!"

Everyone but the strange longgrown guy looked to the ground. Angela knew what would happen soon since she had already seen people who had been in contact with those blackened men. They didn't wake up again. Never again. The Never.

"Wake up! Please!"

The girl's eyes kept twitching like as if she would look around. The blond looked at her with rising panic. After that he looked at everyone.

"Help me! Please you've got to make her wake up!"

"People who've been caught by these black dudes don't wake up again. Sorry." Their leader, Dankow, replied.

"But you can't let her-"

"Die? We tried to wake the people but it didn't work. Sorry."

"But-but-" The blond looked at their strange guest. Said person kept staring at him like as if he was waiting for him to say something.

"Help her! Make her wake up again-"

"I love you too Ron- I'm so sorry I love you-" The redhead quietly mumbled.

So Ron was his name. Their strange guest suddenly reached forward, wrapped his hands around her throat and pressed some spot. Said spot was about as high as the shoulder blades and lay at the bottom of a triangle. That triangle was where two bones went upward and inward. Roughly in the middle of that triangle lay the lung's connection to the mouth and nose.

"I love you too Kim just wake up please!"

Ron pulled the girl closer and her head on his shoulder. Her slightly opened mouth lay near his throat. Their strange guest pressed again and sat back to his seemingly unmoving position. The girl made a few gurgling noises while her eyes kept twitching around. Then they slowly opened and revieled the nonexistance of color.

Ron pulled her up to eyesight and made a shocked face when he saw that her emeraldgreen color was not there. It slowly began to arise out of her white balls while her mouth kept moving around. She seemed to say something but no words came out. Ron began to sob loudly and pulled her closer again. His tears were the ones from joy. Angela felt a little bit of dread leaving.

"So they can wake up. If only we'd have known earlier."

Dankow yelled at their strange guest: "Why the hell didn't you do that earlier? You fucking bastard!"

His fist came forward and near the man's face but the man's fist wrapped around it. A cracking noise came and Dankow screamed.

"Let him go." Ron said quietly while his little girl started to mourn quietly. The man let Dankow's fist go and continued to stare into nothing.

"...Ron?... Ron is that you?"

---

Max spotted something he hadn't wanted to see: Guncrawlers. Three of them crawled forward in their strange and unique manner until they heard Bonnie. Again his heart made a small jump at the thought of her being alive. They were coming for her and got into a crouching way of running. She didn't hear them and kept shooting a biogun at a few undead.

There was still a wall of undead between him and her. He started yelling loudly and raised his rifle. The Rakcrawler had stopped shooting so he could move freely. The three grey things turned towards him and went back to their crawling way of walking. They sped towards him.

He saw their armament: Two of them had bioflamers on their backs and its shooting barrel lay underneath their left arms in a thin attachment. A thin blue flame came out of it. One of the two had, just like the one without flamer, a biogun on his left shoulder. The third without flamer had the biologic form of a huge machinegun underneath his right arm.

Three guncrawlers, a steadily increasing amount of undead and a refilling Dark. He yelled loudly and aimed his rifle while running freely. AN enraged came forward and made a vertical strike. Max jumped aside and rammed his bayonett into his face. Another one came and made a vertical attack. Max parried it with his rifle's middle and rammed it's butt into the man's face.

The man fell and before he could get back up again a long sharp thing entered his head. Two undead came froward and Max shot the first into chest. The woman was thrown backwards by the superiour force. Two enraged came and one got the rifle's butt into his belly. He dropped to the ground and Max shot the last undead into the chest. The other enraged began to run away but received a bullet into his belly.

The three crawlers moved towards him both flamers shot their hungry flames. Max ducked into a crater when the third one stayed behind and opened fire. Number one came forward and jumped on him while shooting his shouldermounted biogun. Max stabbed upward from his lying position, caught it in midair, his bayonett stuck hard in the things chest, he turned to his back and "threw" the thing into a crater.

It screamed loudly as soon as the mustard gas worked into its body through the open wound. The second one was a lot more carefull. It crawled over the ground to make itself harder to hit and was in meleerange. It slashed with one hand while its flamer fired on. Max jumped up, stepped sideways to evade the flames, ran forward and was near the thing within moments. The other one kept shoting its gun.

Bonnie turned around shot at it while pure heat washed by the elder teenagers face. It was him or the creature.


	45. Three new things to bear in mind

I would like to have some reviews from you dear readers. That would be nice and helpfull. And once again I would like to say "thank you" for reading my story. It's fricking long isn't it? Well acutally it's about two thirds finished and I estimate it to the longest story on whole fanfiction. net now already! Anyways, thanks again. It's nice to have an audiance out there.

---

Henry kept running while the darkness was ready to consume him completely. It spread like a huge drop of black ink in a bucket of water. It was not seeable but could be noticed, it was not even there but could be noticed. It was not there and the only feelable thing was the lack of normality. It was a contrast in itself. It was like a thief and like a villain on a larger scale. But it was not even evil since evil had a proper motivation.

His breathing kept increasing but that not only came from the running. Something sucked at his overall stamina and his body interpreted it as physical stress. He ran past a lantern and right after he ran past it its lightbulb popped. Darkness immediately seized the opportunity and spread. It had kept waiting above the lantern and outside its sheltering radius of light.

It came towards him like ink through water and followed his movements. Parts of it stretched from its main "body" and tried to get a grip on him. He ran past the stretching blackness and a manifesting Dark. Henry felt parts of his mind, sanity, memories and knowledge being sucked into the blackened figure. He knew them well.

It drained him and what it stole from him fastened its process of manifesting. Its reddened flares followed his movements while Henry felt something grip into his mind. It took place and sucked at his sanity like a baby on its mother's nipple. Its hold on his mind grew and grew as more emotions and memories were drained out of him. It was like a river that took more and more space because its dam broke.

And IT took place where memories and mind had been before. But Henry made it to escape its growing grasp by thinking of something odd: He kept thinking of one certain thing and focused his entire thoughts on it: Arkanthar. Slowly the pressure ebbed off and died down to almost nothing while its grip stopped being there. The connection had been fragile in its beginnings and hence got cut. Barely.

Clusters of reddened spots within blackened clouds moved from roof to roof and took positions around his escape route. He felt them watch him from their hideouts upon rooftops. He felt their hideous grip within his mind and body. It wasn't as intense as the one from the Dark but it was enough to serve as their mark upon him. They came to toy with their food like cowboys sometimes toyed with their herdes.

Henry ran further. He ran like hell. He knew them well.

---

Dankow kept massaging his heavilly pressed wrist. It had hurt like hell and he didn't understand how that man could have blocked that attack. The redhead seemed to become conscious again and quietly sobbed just like her blond friend. After some time they both stopped crying and the readhead sat down beside him. So they could wake up again.

"You allright KP?"

"Uh-huh. Sorta."

"What happened?"

"I don't know... it was some house just like the ones in Wannaweep. I heard someone scream inside and after I got in the door was smashed shut. Everything was covered with bugs of sorts."

"Wait! It's a small house and when you get inside it's bigger than it looked from the outside, right?" Dankow asked. The girl noticed him for the first time and replied:

"Yes and it didn't have any windows."

"And it looked rotten?"

"Yeah."

"How come you know about her dream Mister?" The blond asked. Dankow looked down and remained quiet. He simply couldn't tell them.

"Let's just say I heard of a few people who've had similar nightmares. And who exactly are you two?"

The blond nodded and kept stroking the young girl's head. "I'm Ron and this is Kim. We're some sort of... world saviours."

Dankow furred his brows. It sounded more than stupid but he didn't want to underestimate the teenagers. He had underestimated people for exactly three times in his life and it had always ended badly.

"Saviours. I am Dankow and this is the nameless big guy who saved your friend. Our driver is Angela and this over there is Raphael."

He pointed to the said people: Angela wore jeans, a brown leather jacket and boots. She had short black hair. Raphael sat beside her and wore a blackened combat suit with a white kevlar vest above it. He also wore a ski rider like black mask that covered the full head and his brownish hair. It showed eyes, mouth and nose. Dankow himself wore clothes similar to the ones of Raphael.

He knocked at the pickup's glassy window and put his mask off. Raphael turned around and did the same. Angela smiled and looked at them for a moment before turning her attention back to the street.

"So who are you people? I mean you don't just drive around for fun in a pickup with enough guns to blow up fort Knox!" Ron asked.

"Why do you have a gun?" Dankow replied shortly since he didn't want to be put into doubt. He was the one to ask and not the one to answer. Old habits died hard.

"Oh I just kinda...err... found it! I woke up with a big headache and it lay right infront of me just as this small pocket here. Then I shot the blackened man and a few people with axes and stuff. And the strangest thing was that Kim had that dull and eyeless look. And I felt like a passenger in my own body when I shot those people."

"Aha. We are driving to Middleton Museum. A Btr-60 is supposed to be there."

"What's a Btr-60?" Kim asked and put her head away from Ron's shoulder.

"A light tank."

"Oh. And why don't you go to the police station? It's not legal to just steal a tank from a museum."

"..."

Ron felt a strange sting in his head when a few thoughts formed in his mind. He tried to focus on the man who had been with the redeyed and agressive men. He couldn't focus on it no matter how hard he tried. It was like as if any thought would simply vanish and collaps because its basement and foundation crumbled. He tried to think about the blackened men but found that he couldn't even remember the blackened men anymore.

He simply forgot them but before they completely vanished he asked:

"Who are these blackened men? I shot a couple of rounds into him but he just walked after me!"

Dankow simply shrugged his shoulders. "They cannot be killed and everyone who looks into their "eyes" for too long collapses and doesn't wake up again. Your friend however is an exception."

He pointed at Kim who sighed loudly and mourned quietly. She had a hand on her fore head and Ron knew what that had to mean: Uber-headache.

"Well Kim is the girl that can do anything! And you don't talk much, do you?"

"No."

---

Henry kept running like a madman and made it around the corner. He noticed a strange pull in his mind when he stepped over an almost invisible line. He stopped, knelt down and digged in the cold snow. Hundreds of needles stung through his hands when he reached naked marble. He digged another hole until his fingers became dull chunks.

Two clusters of red inside their blackened clouds jumped through the air with superhuman speed and landed on nearby rooftops. They mend into the growing night and danced over walls that were not hit by the dying sun's light. Two Dark moved around the corner even though they had been seconds after him before. He knew why. Henry knew them well. Shadows of hatred created through ignorance.

"It has to be there! It has to be!"

The shapes came closer just as well as the blackened clouds. The night shielded and helped them. They moved through the growing night and turned it into hungry blackness. Loud noises of popping lanterns came but Henry didn't hear them since the digging was more important.

The strange clouds came closer while two new ones jumped from roof to roof, unnoticed, thin, quick and ready to feast. They were almost perfect. Henry knew them well. The new hole was finished but Henry was disappointed to find nothing important. He began to feel something enter his mind and fought as hard a he could against its entry. He needed a little bit more time. Just a little bit.

Two more Dark came around the corner and both had flamers. The blueish haze of their small flameigniter's couldn't rival the reddish glow their "eyes" created. The blue flames couldn't burn into his mind over such a distance but their draining could. Neither they nor the blackened clouds dared to go near the mall and Henry knew why. He kept digging.

"Come on..."

Hundreds of scalpells anatomized his mind when multiple hands gripped into him. They weren't physical but mental and he felt how they ripped small chunks of memories apart. They stole small parts of the "big cheese" that was his sanity like hungry mouses. They took small bites every time but increased their tempo. They wouldn't stop until there was nothing of his "cheese" left. He knew them well.

The Dark kept standing around him in an odd halfcircle. For a certain reason they couldn't get close to the mall's walls and roof. They weren't able nor allowed to do so. Henry kept on digging. Two of the clouds came closer and he saw how their reddened eyes build symmetric centers. The mental pressure grew immensly when the first one dared to enter the dying sunlight.

Its strangely shifting form kept on moving both within his head and outside of it. He saw sharp things manifest in a circlish movement that had its origin somewhere in the moving "puddles" middle. They centered in circles around several axis until they manifested within its blackness. It started to lose a bit of its darkness's intensity but won a foothold within Middleton, Sol 3, earth, and the multiverse.

And within his head as well. It rammed fleshhooks into his mind what made it impossible to make the thing leave.

He felt it taking parts of him for costudy without killing him inside. It anatomised and tormented his mind with the passion and heartlessness of an inquisitor. It grew within him and manifested. It stood, physically seen, not much further than ten meters away from him. But mentally it was a distance away that could not be described. A distance that could not be named. A distance that could not be defined.

But somehow that distance lost its validity. It was put into brackets, it was put aside, it was defined even though it should remain undefined.

The Dark seemed to have other plans with his mind since they kept draining him empty like a wettened sponge while the cloudy thing wanted only parts of him. Parts that allowed "it" entry into something that not even Galileo Galilei truly understood. Two more of the clouds, lured by their "comrade's" success, made their way towards him. They slowly came out of their shadows, probed the area like children that didn't want to be seen by their parents and started off.

The sunlight lost its dominance and they lost their patience. Henry kept on digging and slowly came closer to what he wanted to find. His mind was near the state of complete breakdown while multiple things kept ripping at it like children that fought over a small toy by tugging at it. Children often didn't know that toys could break if they were torn at for too long. And normally toys couldn't fight back. Normally.

He found what he wanted to find and pressed his numb fingers against it. It was a thin line of yellow glitter and sand. It had a strange thickness and mass and was way too heavy for dust or sand. Henry found it and made contact. It clicked. The mindfight was open for him. He felt like a boxer who hadn't been allowed to fight back for the first three rounds and finally made his first strike. It hit home.

And Henry remembered a few lines from a song:

_Out of my way_

He sighted the thing inside his mentality and acquiered a lock-on. It suddenly jumped back when it noticed him entering the boxing ring. _  
_

_Out of my day_

The strange creature twitched like as if its bodyless mass had recieved a blow. It tried to move among a blow that had it in a different way.

_Out of your mind and into mine_

It tried to retreat from his mind, it tried to free itself but its own fleshhooks kept it trapped. It was like a bee: It could eiter pull its stinger out and die later because its organs would be ripped out as well or it could keep sticking among and be swatted by Henry's hand. It was trapped inside what it had tried to invade.

_Its no more_

Its strange unphysical form tried to retreat as well but that wouldn't help the strange murderous creature. Its mind was trapped. The fight was fought in two different ways at the same time: It was fought physically and mentally. Henry could lose the fight physically for as long as the thing didn't attack him physically and he was about to win mentally. And the mental fight was the important one, the one that was valid.

_Its not born_

The creature had almost been born inside him but it was aborted shortly before birth. It was a creature that would have consumed his own giver of birth. Like a Phoenix it would have burtn itself only to re-arise from Henry's ashes. But it was aborted.

_Into your step-_

Indeed, Henry felt like an adult that made a huge stomping into the escape route of a teenager who had tried to steal from his "store". The shopkeeper got out his shotgun. The teen "called" its friends for help but they ran and abandoned their friend. They left him behind like false friends who wanted the teen to steal from a store as a test of courage._  
_

_ but out of time_

He cut its legs and his body began to smile. His head laid back and revieled an odd sight: His eyes were dull white balls. The shopkeeper aimed his shotgun.

_Head strong_

The small line of strange sandlike stuff gave Henry the opportunity to fight back. It was trapped just like the black mutantmonkey from Kim's "dream" had been trapped. Trapped and consumed. Trapped and absorbed. The Dark could no longer steal what was inside his body since there nothing to steal anymore. His mind was the shotgun and the sandy stuff was his buckshot.

_Whats wrong_

Inside his mind it screached, shrieked and screamed. It tried to struggle free but only wound itself deeper into his unforgiving grip. He was like a hole of wet sand and the thing was a wanderer. It had felt safe in the desert of his mind but he had trapped it within one of the very few dangerous places. It had andvanced too fast.

_Ive already heard this song before_

_"Yes I've heard this song before when I was young and on a concert. Right, Buddy?" _He asked the strange thing even though he knew it couldn't communicate with him.

_ Youve arrived,-_

It had arrived in his mind in full strength just like Napoleon had arrived within Russia. He had been mighty and the Russians didn't stand a chance. But one unlikely thing happened: The winter and illnesses stroke Napoleons army down and forced it to leave. And the sand gave Henry his own little winter and cholera. His body smiled wickedly. _"Hmmm... Food." _He fired his shotgun and the sand began to glow wickedly.

_-but now its time to kiss your ass good-bye_

The creature died. It stopped existing because Henry forced it to forget about itself. He consumed the whole creature. After some time he woke up and looked around: The Dark had left as well as the blackened clouds. His fingers were blue and numb and his entire body came closer to the critical limit of cooldown. He barely noticed himself walking towards the mall's entrance.

He didn't notice that some people waved at him and he didn't notice himself collapsing.

---

"So where's Derek?" Tara asked. She was surprised about how calm she was.

"Well... ummm..." OD looked away and out of the window and Tara got the hint to not press the issue.

"You'll tell me when you see it fit, okay?"

"Yeah... sure." His voice was a little bit trembling but not as much as she had expected it to be.

"You two know each other?" Helen asked. Danny looked up and waited for someone to explain just as his female partner.

"Yes we do. We've met when this strange blackened cloud-fog-thingy killed half of my hood. It slaughtered everyone 'till we got some fucking guns up. And even then we didn't stand a chance." Od began to speak. Helen was about to talk but Od went on. He kept looking out of the window and looked like as if he wasn't there anymore.

"It somehow moved in through the window and shredded someone's chest in half. After that it jumped forward and blew someones head with its leg. Fleshhooks came out of the leg, it lifted him up and swung his dead body like a club at us. After that it somehow got... inside of our heads and kept talking about peace and hope and friendship."

"That's-" Hanna began but Tara made a shh noise. She bend forward and whispered into her ear: "Let him talk it'll help him."

"It became black fog and got into someones head through the eyes, split him up from the inside and lunged at me 'n Derrick. One half of the corpse fell onto our sound and it started blasting of its music. The thing shuddered and for a moment the voice was gone. We ran like lemmings out of the doors while it picked us off like puppets."

"It rammed its legs into one at the end of the crowd and put its fleshooks out. After that it empaled him on a lamp like a cow or pig in a butchery and took two more of us. It cut their legs and kept them from running. I felt like as if it couldn't get _into _us cause of the music but I just ran like the others. Five of us put up some kind of defensive ring of sorts while the rest ran off into different directions. It somehow got... foggy and spilled out of the window again."

"It somewhat shifted over the roofs and got into everyone. Most of 'em were outta sight but it could somewhat feel 'em. I had no gun and put myself into the middle of our circle. My homies kept aiming into various directions 'cause we couldn't see it but we heard it when it split my dudes open like tincans. It literally opened 'em up from the inside. We could hear our homies scream like hell when it got into 'em."

"And outta them, whatever you like to see fit. The three dudes we had left behind kept screaming and we couldn't stand it anymore. One of us five ran into the house and we saw it ramming its legs into him when he opened the door. I saw all the walls covered with blood 'n gore. It got into his ribcage and then opened him with eight or so legs. It splat him open from the inside and... well."

"And some fucking rapmusic played among, ain't that cynicly funny?"

Then Od turned to look into Helen's face and spoke quietly: "And the cops didn't come even though we called 'em. It jumped through the dude's holed torso and used its legs to catapult itself at us. It used him for nothing else than a fucking jumphelper. It got into Hamy and chopped head off clean. I took his rifle 'n ammo with one hand and ran. Derrick came after me just as Saw did. But Tony stayed and shot into it."

"I'll never forget how he screamed for help when he noticed we left him behind."

OD sighed, looked into everyone's face and sayed one more cynic thing: "But you don't bother much with screaming if something rips yo' lungs intwo from inside, do you? And you know what? Someone in the hood called the cops 'cause of fucking "too loud music". And you know what they said? "Go screw yourself, gangers." That's what they said. It empaled Saw in the car after ripping its roof off."

"And some strange black dude, not one with brown skin but simply someone absolutely black, raised its arm at Derrick. He just slumped to the ground and then attacked me when I tried to get 'im up again. Well, I shot him later. Ain't that nice? Gotta shoot yo' best pal 'cause some twisted fuck made him go crazy while fucking zombies and invisible grey killerthingies are after you. And yo' cops still say I'm lying, are ya?"

Danny was the first to reply: "That's... bitter. I haven't even heard of such a thing happen."

Od took his "mask" and hat off and revieled a long cut that went over his jaw. It was barely fixed with a bloodstained bandage and a reddish line went from his left jawbone to the higher right cheek.

"Oh yeah? You know what? It almost got me too!"

"It toyed with me while Derrick called the cops. It just pulled me up from a nearby wall and heaved me upon a roof. And you cops said: "Go screw yourself, gangers!". Now you know what I... "I" say to this? I'm a fucking crippled monster now and you said srew yourself. You go screw yourself you useless fucks. If that nice blond lady hadn't come by my whole hood'd be killed now.

"And I heard that bastard say go srew yourself right when that thing cut my face for fun. Screw yourself, well please and thank you, too."

"But-" Helen began to explain but OD cut her short: "Go screw yourself bitch. I heard that ya' huntin' some teenager cause he's supposed to be a massmurderer instead of preventing such a fucked up shit. And the rest of ya is on christmas vacation. Go screw yourself useless bastards. Serve and protect up my ass!"

He put his scarf and hat back on while looking out of the window. No one spoke for a while.

---

"Ron? Did I say something... odd while I was dreaming?" Kim asked him quietly.

"Ummm... you said..." Ron couldn't quiet get his guts up to say it. He was frightened she would think of it as a lie or something else. Or maybe she would think he tried to get into her pants? No matter what he said their longlasting friendship would shatter. he bit his lower lip and took a breath in when the strange tall man started speaking with an exact copy of Kim's voice.

"I love you too Ron-I'm so sorry I love you-"

Kim kept staring at the odd man for a veeeeery long time. She blinked a few times and looked at the two males in an odd. Way. She thought for a long time and then slowly turned to Ron. She raised a finger and was about to say something when her brows furrowed. A few moments later she took air in once again spoke:

"Did I... say such a thing?" Her voice was clear but she spoke very slowly. Ron knew that kind of speaking and it concerned him greatly.

"One only sees what one has when one loses it, as the people say. Be happy he died in a dream and not in reality, girl."

Both teenagers looked at the blackclad man with surprise and confusion on their faces. Dankow had spoken and, in an odd way, uncovered the plane and simple truth. They had feelings for each other that were new.

"But... we've been just friends for a long time! I-I don't want to ruin that with being hasty and stupid!" Ron exclaimed. He stammed slightly what concerned Kim greatly since he barely to never stammered in that way. he was kinda shy sometimes while speaking but it wasn't normal for him to stammer like that.

Dankow simply grunted. "So what? "IF" you've been friends for so long you won't fail even if you lose. If you try couplestuff and don't like it you can simply go back to friendship-stuff. If you try you can win but if you don't even try you fail automaticly."

"But I don't love Ron! I mean I kinda blurted that out during a nightmare you can't say that it counts then!" Kim hastily blurted out. She didn't see Ron looking away with a saddened face. She didn't notice something snap inside him. She didn't notice.

"Now look how you've hurt your "friend". Many couples would be happy to have what you already have."

Kim turned to look at Ron and noticed him hiding his face. "Ron?"

"YOU have been hasty and stupid, girl. You didn't even try and he has to take the pain for it. And girl-" He bend over to emphasize his point. "- things that are being said infront of death are always true. You lied to your friend to hide yourself from acting. I don't understand how you want to save the world if you cannot even confess love."

"I... Ron I didn't mean to-"

"It's... okay Kim. Whatever you don't want to happen doesn't happen."

The strange man spoke again: "Mental attack on subject zerozeroeight detected."

His eyes turned to blackened orbs and something gripped into that Kim couldn't put the finger on. It felt painfull and something inside was about to snap before Ron spoke up again:

"Cancel"

The man sat back again. Kim was connfused to no end and felt guilty for having done something bad. Dankow was right: She had said something hastily and Ron got hurt from it. The thought of Ron getting hurt summoned pictures of the whole dream up. Pictures from the hung cops and bloodcovered walls came as well. And the thought of HER hurting Ron made her stomach twist up in pain.

"Could we stop for a moment? I think I'm feeling ill-"

"Sure." Dankow replied and knocked at the window. Angela looked at him and he made turning move with his hand. Angela nodded and slowed the car. Dankow turned back to her and spoke up again: "Try to fix the damage you've done, girl. Tell him absolutely everything you know about the subject. Tell him everything you suspect, theorise and think about it. And put even the most unimportant things into words.

For example you could say that you're not sure about what you feel and that you've said something that isn't true. It isn't true because the facts you build it upon aren't facts but hastily made up sefish selfprojections of your inner fright of losing important people."

"Escuse me?"

"Just say you've said something you didn't mean to say. You'll be fine."

The car stopped and Kim jumped from it. She ran behind a house's corner and clutched her stomach Ron came after her but he didn't walk in his usual goofy and funny way. Instead he wlaked straight, efficient and quickly. He stayed near the wall like as if expecting an attack and his left hand lay around the weapon's magazine. His face was stern and it looked empty and hollow.

Then she threw up.

A hand moved over neck and took her hair into an improvised ponytail. She puked more and more until she collapsed on her knees. Ron knelt down beside her and kept stroking her hair and neck. His right hand remained at the weapon's trigger and grip. He didn't look like HER Ron anymore and his touch wasn't as warm and caressing as it normally was.

He always cared so much for her but she made one big decision: It was time to care only for him. At least for once.

She stopped throwing up after some time and felt hollow. She slowly got up or at least Kim believed it to be that way. In fact Ron pulled her up in a supportive but still somehow reserved and distant way. Efficience and not emotion.

"Ron? I... said a lot of things lately..."

He remained quiet and his face was stern.

"And... I'm sorry for having said them. For example when you just ran from these grey things I yelled at you and that wasn't fair. And what I said when I was dreaming... well I wasn't really dreaming you know..."

"No. I do not know, Kim." She looked at her friend. It wasn't normal for him to call her Kim and it wasn't the way he talked normally.

"Ummm..." She decid to follow Dankow's advice and just let it all out:

"I'm just so frightened you wouldn't be MY Ron anymore... and about that whole love thing... I just don't know how intense or in what way I do but... I guess I do... kinda... urmmm come on you know what I mean!"

She playfully boxed him into the side but he quickly stepped back to evade her hand. "No I still do not know, Kim. Tell me."

She took a really long breath in and the words out: "Ron you're my friend, my only REAL friend and I couldn't stand losing you and when I said I wouldn't love you I was too confused and fightened. I feared you wouldn't love me back or think I'm weird or think I'm strange. I thought you wouldn't like me, want me,... lo-like me anymore. And with that strange dream..."

She took another breath, made a step towards him and spoke without looking at him. She was too frightened to see rejection.

"It was a Wannaweep hut and I heard someone scream and it was a kid and a huge mutated monkey and the door got smashed shut. And that small kid kept crying and I just wanted to help and when I came closer there were bugs on the walls, the door and windows were no longer there and... that monkey got kinda eaten by that wall and it came closer and..."

She put her hands on his shoulders and felt him shiver under touch. He had never shivered under her touch. Not even once. Never ever.

"It totally consumed that thing and it looked so helpless... I got that kid and tried to find a way out but there was none and the walls kept coming closer. Ron that whole house LIVED and it wanted to eat me. The walls came closer and it was all so horrible and when that thing came close I realised that I'd die in there. I panicked just like I did when I said I wouldn't love you."

She put her head on her chest but there was little to none of his usual warmth, niceness and comfort. She began to cry.

"There was that speartentacle thing and I didn't want to die and I... I... Ron I threw that Kid into it! I gave the kid to that thing just to buy some time for myself! And when this thing got the kid It was YOU! You tried to struggle free but that thing empaled you and it had hooks and..."

She felt how Ron trembled under her grip and how he almost slumped into the wall. Kim Possible began to cry.

"I said I was sorry but that thing pulled you closer to its gaping mouth and you... you wanted to... Say that you loved me! You said you'd forgive me and that it was okay! And when you wanted to say you loved me it killed you!"

"Ermm..." Ron made and slowly moved his arms around her. It felt odd, strange and moronic since Ron didn't hug her how he usually did.

"I said I'd love you too and then this thing got me and cut my wrists and my eyes popped and it took my skin and then I woke up... Ron when I said that I didn't love you I was frightened you'd KNOW more than you told me! I was frightened you'd reject me and push me away! I was so frightened you'd know what a monster I am! I thought you'd know about my dream and hate me 'cause I sacrificed you for myself!"

"You... you're not a monster Kim-"

"But I KILLED you! I fucking bloody murdered you just to spare myself a few more seconds! I'm such a horrible person!"

"No you aren't!"

"Ron I do love you... somehow! I just don't know how and when and what and why and who and it is all just so confusing! And I'm just frightened I'd blow our friendship! I couldn't stand losing you Ron you're the only one I have!"

"KP I'd never leave you and you know that!"

"No I didn't know... you mean you'd... NEVER?"

"Never ever KP!"

"But... Ron I didn't want to hurt you. I've been stupid and hasty and frightened and... stuff."

"Okay KP let's just look at this whole love thing like... like a new leaf that grows to a tree! That tree is our friendship and if that love thing doesn't work its leaf will die. But the tree will always prevail. And KP... I kinda... urrrm..."

She looked up to see Ron. Her Ron. A Ron whose cheeks were so sweetly red and a Ron who bit his lips in that sweetly nervous way.

"I guess I do kinda love you back... I've just been frightened as well and... Let's just see if this whole couple thing works out okay? If it doesn't we can still be friends like before. Or at least like... before with me staring at you butt all day."

Kim smiled in a surprised but happy way. "You dirty naughty boy you!" Then she blushed slightly herself and looked away. "Well I've caught myself wishing you'd lose more than just your pants sometimes..."

Both had crimson cheeks but it was still something nice. It was new and yet old. It was something strange and common at the same time. It was a contrast. And it was so bloody good at being a lovely little contrast.

"So... should we try to let that leaf grow a little?" Ron asked the readheaded girl.

"Yeah, sure." Kim snuggled herself into his chest and started to nag at his ear lobe. He took air in through slightly gritted teeth and almost molt into her. His arms wrapped around her and he began to mourn slightly.

"Looks like there's another "leaf" growing just now." She whispered into his ear. It was odd how "manly" his embrace was. Odd but nice.

"Oh err... hehe that's a good one KP!"

"Well I wasn't joking about it Ron..." She whispered and snuggled an upper leg between his two legs and rested her crotch upon it. He blushed a lot more and Kim began to kiss him slightly. At first he seemed frozen, stiff and outright shocked. But after some time he slowly pulled her closer and kissed back. A little later they brought their tongues to bear and Kim felt her butt gently being massaged by two warm hands.

She mourned slightly and increased her tongueplay. In their playfull tonguefight she began to put a little too much emphasize on the word fight and Ron's hands slowly began to slide under her pants and unto her pantied buttcheeks. Both quickly seperated, blushed and looked away in an embarassed way.

"Sorry..." both of them said in strange unison. They looked at each other and giggled nervously.

"It's okay but only if you stay soft." They said once more in their strange unison. Both laughed and snuggled closer again. Ron began to sneakily steal his hands away from her butt in an attempt to prevent her from noticing it. Kim quickly got them, wrapped her hands around his and slowly lead them back upwards. But she did it very slowly and enjoyed the warmness of his hands upon her skin. After that she dropped them on the same spot but with a layer of pants in between.

She kissed him without being rough, he massaged her clothed butt and they both didn't want the moment to end.


	46. Herolds of a storm

Henry awoke in the comforting warmth of a bed. A blanket lay above his cold body and a fresh bandage covered his injured eye. Something made a noise and he turned his head towards it. A figure in blue stood near his bed and it seemed to speak while Henry slowly got up.

"Hello Mister. My name is Will Du and I am-"

"The boss around here? I hope so because I have to speak to someone important."

"Well, at first you should identify yourself."

"Henry Rockwaller. I made it out of Nekropolis."

Bandages wrapped around the man's head and it looked like as if something had painfully mowed over it. Henry assumed he must have had a date with a flamer. A memory came up: He wore similar pants to the one of the oneeyed woman he had seen.

"Since my superiours are currently unavailable I have to speak with you. What is Nekropolis, what is happening to this city and why haven't you left the city yet?"

"The city of death, it is being overrun by a whole army, my daughters are still here and I won't leave without them."

"Aha. Well what exactly is Nekro-"

"Have you locked this place? Have you destroyed all ladders and stairs? And most important: Did you speak with _them_?"

Will looked confused: "Who did I speak too, please? And yes this place is locked and fortified. Why do you want to know?"

"Will, this entire city will turn into hell within a few hours. Thousands of willless murderers are coming from former Upperton and they will turn this town into a hell you haven't seen before. Call the army Will. And NO I am NOT joking about this."

"First: What is Necropolis. Second: What sort of people are coming from Upperton and what the hell are you talking about?"

Henry sighed since the whole thing would take rather long. "Okay I'll tell you but don't interrupt and you must promise me one thing:

Believe me and do what I tell you to do. You don't know what is coming towards you but I know. I will answer every question but you have to promise me to believe what I will tell you. If you find one single thing I can't explain or at least theorise about you don't have to believe me. But if you don't find something that doesn't fit you will do what I advise you too."

"I am not arguing about leadership here Mr. Rockwaller." Will stated as a not so subtle hint of him being the boss.

"Me neither. Look, I don't want to start a mutiny or undermine your authority. You just haven't been trained for this stuff just as Upperton Air Force base hadn't been trained for it. Fourhundred marines haven't been able to survive against what comes to this city so YOU won't be able to do so without my help."

Will pondered it for some time until he slowly made a decision: "I will listen to you but only if you explain every little bit."

"Okay Kid take a seat this'll take some time." Henry moaned, tilted his head backwards and closed his eyes. His back felt like shit.

"It was cold and yet warm at the same time. Snow fell from the heavens but molt because of the hot flames. Buildings that were set afire gave the blackened night a ghostly light while shadows danced in the orange fires. Hungry flames licked over metal, flesh and bone while things made of eternal hatred stalked the streets. Thin straws of foggy and white stuff flowed from rooftop to rooftop in search for prey."

"Prey? What do you mean?"

"Please let me explain further. You'll see then."

"Okay." Will Du took a seat near the bed and motioned for his guest to grab a glass with orange juice but Henry denied the offer.

"Blackened shapes moved unseen in the shadows while their flaring red eyes mirrored the eternal flame of their hatred. They wielded huge weapons but those didn't make any noise just like their wielders absolutely quiet movement. Clusters of reddened spots inside black clouds flew through the air and made contact with walls but they jumped away before the eye could grasp their mortal sight completely.

Huge mobs of pale persons roamed empty and shallow streets. Slain people and their weapons lay in barely recognisable positions. Their blood mend with the molten snow and formed crimson puddles around their former nests of resistance. Rain kept coming down because the snow melt above the burning buildings. Broken furniture scarcely lay around and showed where barriers had futilly been build.

Their shapes were barely recognisable as the humans they had once been. Injuries, no small part of them lethal, marked their bodies while they walked on in numb, strange and seemingly aimless ways. Their limbs hung lifelessly among their bodies while they walked around like mentally disabled persons. To the unpractised eye they looked like a strange but harmless group of idiots.

But just that they were not."

"Who?"

Henry sighed loudly. He knew them well. "The former population of Upperton.

The city was quiet except for the flame's huge cracks and the noises of collapsing buildings. Sometimes gunfire could be heard but quickly died down after some time. And not in rare cases the people who caused the noises died as well. But one source of noises didn't die out: Pistols, machinepistols, rifles, shotguns and sometimes even machineguns rattled during the darkest night.

An entire street seemed to move forward while a mass quietly stomped over it. It looked a little bit like small waves of an ocean that moved forward. But when one looked closer one saw that it was, or once had been, normal people. Smaller people made the wave's valleys while the larger ones were uprisings.

Small groups of people who walked normally covered the huge mass's flanks. They were armed with axes, clubs and other melee-tools. Red dots stood in their eyes while they franticly looked for somehing to murder. Noises of gunfire came closer.

Overthrown chairs, tables, drawers, beds and other furniture created a barrier. People lay behind it and fired over it and through small holes. The huge mass came closer and didn't stop. Small parts of it fell down but the mass went on. It was very loud because of the flames and gunfire.

It was the burning city Necropolis, the city of the dead."

"Okay mister I-"

"And then I realised what was happening: I saw the blackened figures that came from behind, I saw the greyish things that glew on nearby building's walls and I saw blackened things upon their roof's tops. I saw them and the defenders inability to witness their doom. They kept firing into the upcoming tide of death. They were too occupied with the massive trebuchet to notice the scalpell."

_"Turn around you idiots! Turn around and shoot them!" _I yelled but no one listened. My voice didn't make it through the gunfire."

---

Bonnie shot the strange gun into another strange man. It didn't take much wits to see that they were Zombies. She had been forced to watch stupid Zombiemovies on a few dates and they had been boring and useless splatter. The oddest thing about the movies was that the actors never realised that the people around them where Zombies and they never obeyed the unwritten rules: Never split up, never go somewhere alone, never go out at night and so on.

It had always been the same stupid stuff: City is being overrun, police is helpless, people die, people don't realise they're being slaughtered.

"Geez why don't they just go to a fort and block the doors with something like a tank? Jesus, as if it'd be SO hard to think out."

She shot another man with her strange gun when she noticed something odd about her arm. It was a strange noise and she hadn't heard one like that before. She looked down her arm to see that small wires of sorts came out of the guns lower grip. They were thin and red and moved closer to her hand. In one sudden move they wrapped around her wrist and started to suck at it.

"Ahh!"

Bonnie quickly grabbed the thing and threw it away when its small wires tried to go underneath her skin. She knelt down at the beginning of the crater and caught herself moving among a rythm. It was a song that played loudly out of a crater. She didn't know the song nor the lyrics of it but noticed that her heart kept beating among the rythm. The lyrics turned around some old fight and it seemed to be a live playing.

"Hmm I wonder where... ah there he is." Bonnie spotted the male she was looking for.

A figure kept hacking its rifle's butt at a lying greyish thing. It simply didn't die even though more and more red spots on its head seemed to pop with every strike. Two of the strange people came to him from behind and he smashed the rifles knife into one of the two people's jaw. After that he rammed the gun's butt into the other ones knee and made him kneel down with that.

After that he kept smashing his rifles butt into the mans face and kept yelling something with each blow: "Stirb! Stirb! Stirb!"

"Hey! Over here!" She yelled to get his attention. Huge groups of zombified people came closer to Max and he shot someone who had suddenly jumped up from a crater's edge. After that he turned to run and ejected the old shell with a loud clack-clack. He withdrew a pistol from his holster and ran. Bonnie was about to say something when she saw explosions where he had stood just a few moments ago.

He shot someone with his pistol with an odd move: He ran towards the man, stopped at about two meters distance and then jumped back. Only a moment later the walking corpse stood where he had stood and got a bullet in its head. After that Max ran away and the corpse exploded in a shower of flesh and gore. He kept sprinting until he finally reached her crater and put his pistol back into its holster. He took a small stripe out of his backpack and put into the rifle.

"What the hell happened? Where is everyone?"

"Two blocks from here in a hotel with a big blue sign. Come we leave."

"Amen."

They ran out of the crater and he put the rifle behind his shoulder and to the right side of the backpack, if one looked at him from behind. Its bloodstained knife gave him an odd look as it stood upright into the air like an antenna of sorts. He took the pistol out again and looked at her while holding his left hand towards her. She quietly grumbled because of the sillyness of that action and took it. Max ran in strange patterns, made turns and twists that looked stupid to her and ran while his breathing got heavier.

She didn't understand the patterns of their route but one fact was for certain: They weren't hit by the rockets for once.

---

Albert ran for the elevator and his beautifull boss followed suit. She had stopped asking about a why or what after the first few moments of stupidly running. He quietly cursed himself for having looked at the video. Something had been released that shouldn't have been released. He got past a sign that showed "Stairs" and tried to open the door. It was blocked.

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck"

"Albert what is happening? Who's after us?"

Albert began to think quickly and made a decision. He took his own chest's clothing off and put it over Betty's head. Before she could protest he wrapped his arms around her throat and pressed when he felt something attacking him. She tried to struggle free but he used his more massy body to force her into the wall.

It began to come around the corner and he felt its longing attack. It felt like as if old, long and sharp fingernails would scratch over his body. But his skin remained unharmed. Betty kept hammereing against his chest with her fists instead of trying to get free by a trick. The odd and basic panic of running away from something unknown together with the surprising attack from someone she loved was too much for her mind to remember training.

She began to inhale deeply since his clothes kept her from getting fresh air. He grit his teeth when he heard loud mourns inside his head and kept his eyes shut for as much as he could. They showed him pictures of horrible contents: He saw teenagers being sliced to pieces by a sick massmurderer. He saw two people slowly burning to death in their crashed car even though a firefighting department is closely nearby.

His jaw began to snap its teeth against each other even though he didn't want it to. His muscles cramped under what his body believed to be a physical onslaught that was no such. It was a lot more subtle in approach but as harsh and obvious as a hammer when it began to come. It was nothing one should, or could, expect from this world to bring up against one self.

Betty slowly seized to struggle against him when he felt like as if his entire skin was being torn from him even though its physical layer remained unharmed. Betty stopped moving at all so maybe she would be fine. Maybe. He fiddled a papernote into his hands that he had been able to take out of his pocket before "stripping" for her. For her.

It was almost cynical how he was mentally stripped by something that should have remained imprisoned. Betty slowly slid downwards since he let her. He felt her presence fade while he scribbled something to the piece of paper with a pencil. Oddly enough it had a cynic inscription below the place he wrote his stuff upon:

"GJ: Protection for anyone"

"_Well I wonder who you protected Betty..." _He thought.

More horridly moving pictures moved across his inner eyes. He died again and again through these pictures and that was how they got him. He let the clothes slip from Betty's head and felt for her breathing near the throat. His hand didn't feel like his own one anymore since he died inside. He died the deaths of others even though he somehow remained unharmed. But everytime he died someone elses death something left him. And just that was what they wanted to happen.

It was too much. Albert wanted to open his mouth to say the unconscious woman that he loved her. For a short moment his iron will had been bypassed by a foolish thought. His eyes went open and that was all the imprisoned ones needed. Two bodies slumped to the ground, one because he was no longer held and the other one because what made him hold itself left.

Both bodies raised again, one three minutes later and relatively unharmed except for a few pressings near the throat. The male one raised a few seconds after dropping to the ground and a small note fell out of his hands when a nearly spasmic shaking went through the entire body. The male body moved forward: At first it looked like a drunk man but it moved faster and more secure after a few steps.

It's destination was a car with two fresh bodies to find. They were both female but that didn't matter much since "he" had been a woman before too.

Inside and not physicly, that is.

There were two more such contellations: One couple was near the unfeeling rivals so "he" had to hurry. But on the other hand, the car with about three and a half fresh bodies and two more nearby looked more interesting. And there was one more car with two females inside. They would still be there for long enough. With another strange and nearly spasmic twitch the body moved forward. It felt so good and... alive to have a body to control so the sideeffects were gladly taken among.

---

Raphael got a little anxious. A few moments ago something... odd had shook him. It went over his entire body and hadn't stopped for over two seconds. And if something was out of order it had to be something wrong. Both he and Dankow had to learn that the hard way. He scratched his head and went out of the car with his bison-2 machinepistol at the hip.

He loved his weapon since it was handy even though it was basically nothing else but an AK with a round and helical magazine that went under the weapon's body and was used as grip. It also had a rather weak caliber because it fired the russian nine millimeter but about sixtysix rounds could easily compensate for that. Before he got around the car a hand with a black biker's glove on it stretched out of the driver's window.

It was Angela's hand and it held a condom between its index and middle finger.

"For the kids, Raphi. Or did you get naughty thoughts?"

"No time. I felt a strange shiver going all over my body and this can't be good. They either come out or stay. Their choice."

"Well then give it to them for later. You've been young once, too, Raphi."

He took the small thing since her arm didn't pull back. Even though he and Dankow had met the woman only a few minutes ago he already knew her habits: She was headstrong. He walked around the car and made his way to the corner of the building. He stayed a few feet away from its edge and couldn't overhear a few things.

"Ron please that-" The girl said in a fakingly annoyed voice.

"You told me to get naughty so I-" The boy obviously didn't get that it was only mocking.

"We leave. You either come out in under half a minute or you stay. And something bad is coming, trust me." He suddenly commanded.

He heard noises of surprise: The small sounds of moving cloth, limbs that tried to cover juicy parts of their bodies and of teenagers looking around emarassedly. For a short moment he envyed the two young people for their easy lives but quickly gulped it down again. He knew that contemplating over his problematic childhood wasn't helping anyone.

Raphael sat down on the cars back in front of his friend and was about to start a conversation when the two teenagers came out of their hiding spot and stood behind the car. Surprisingly none of them looked too embarassed when he handed them the condom.

"Umm I don't think we... urr-" The boy got out.

"For later. STD's and pregnancy is nothing to not care about."

For a short moment they both blushed and looked at each other before the boy took it. After that they got up and the car sped on. They were on the street for only a few seconds when Dankow couldn't keep his curiousity at bay, which was a rarity. And raritys meant that something bad would happen soon.

"Did you two feel a sudden cramplike and spasmic twitch that did NOT belong to sex or kissing?"

It was a rarety for him to say long sentences as well. Something really bad was about to happen. Both teens looked at each other for a short moment and then nodded quietly. They seemed surprisingly serious what showed Raphael that they weren't useless kids but they still had to prove themselves infront of the two adults.

"Good." Dankow said and with nothing but a short look he and Dankow withdrew their Makarov pistols. Raphael turned it with its barrel downwards to the girl which sat on his side. She looked at it suspiciously and then slowly took it while grumbling. Before Raphael could open his mouth the blond boy sat down beside her and took the pistol.

"That way you unload it but there's always a bullet in the chamber left. You take it out by-"

"Ron? How come you know how to handle guns? And where's that oversized machinerifle of yours?"

Ron looked at the weapon and shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno. Just felt like it. And I don't know where the machineGUN is KP."

The girl just made a grunt and rolled her eyes. "KP" was an odd name for a person and Raphael exchanged looks with Dankow.

"Is something wrong with my name, Misters?" The girl asked with a slightly annoyed but still polite tone.

"Ka-Pe is the codename for a first-class asassin. We've met one of that sort before and we won't take any risks even from a teenager."

Both looked deadly serious and something made her swallow. It was clearly that she was unsettled by their behaviour and something else she couldn't put a finger upon: Who where these people? What were they capable of? And why was their spelling of "KP" different from the one she was used to? Their "a" had sounded like the "u" from under and the "e" was a little bit like the very first part of the slangword "ey".

"Hehe...that's just my name for her you know? No reason to get paranoid folks!" "Ron" as the blonde was supposedly named replied with a clearly nervous attitude. Dankow put his pistol back in a clear and quick movement. Just the kind of movement that suggested he could draw the weapon and put it at anyone's head even before the person would notice that he had moved.

"No risks. Not from you, not from Angela and not from the strange one." He narrowed his eyes and showed them his seriousness with that.

Both teenagers knew that these two people should not be screwed with and Kim gave Raphael his pistol.

---

"uuuuuhhhhhh..."

Spinning, whizzing, whirring and stirring the world came back to life. A body slowly arose from the ground. Betty rested her shaking head in a hand while mourning quietly. She hadn't expected something like that to come up. And she hadn't expected to wake up alive. It was indeed strange. She opened her eyes and a blurry vision showed a pistol on the ground as well as a small note.

She picked both items from the ground frowned. Her own pistol had been in her burned top and it felt good to have a new one. Then she slowly read the note or at least tried to. After another mourn and a few times blinking her vision got clear enough to decipher the letters. The overall thing was written badly and its handwriting got more and more awfull at the end. And the grammar was crappy:

"Doon follo mii

leaf sitty

GJ: Protection for anyone"

She pondered where Albert would have got that paper from when she realised it was one of her own. He must have token it out of her burned top among the pencil. She couldn't believe that Albert had tried to kill or at least strangle her and teh fact that all her training hadn't kicked in was bad as well. A large voice inside her felt betrayed and hurt for giving into a man and getting soft around it.

But the smaller one, just the one that was the one of reason and logic, told her to think about his panic and that he maybe wanted her to not witness something. At first she wanted to listen to that voice when her eyes widened.

"That bastard! He didn't just... or did he? Did he just make this whole shit up to..." Her voice was almost trembling when she checked her clothes and her body for any signs of sexual abuse. There were none. And over that short arising of fear about abusement she stopped listening to the reasoning voice. She growled and balled her fists. Something made her angry aside of the fact that he had left her.

Something that was not her made Betty angry.


	47. The mark

I'd like to give Beik a thank you for reviewing to one of my chapters. It feels very good to find feedback.

---

"_True greatness is not what you do while others are watching, but what you do when they are not and no reward is given."_

Hanna sat beside the cop and raised her injured arm while she remembered the thing her dad had once said to her. She couldn't put a finger on why she remembered it in just that moment or why she did so. Small holes in her dress's shoulderpiece showed naked skin and crimson. She looked at the male policeman expectantly and pondered if he had a girlfriend.

"Mister, could you look at my arm please?" She asked him politly. He looked at it and took a small bandage from his box.

"Sure." He spoke in a nice way what gave her a little thrill from the expactation of his touch.

He pulled her shoulder's clothing up and slightly frowned at the sight. Small spots on her skin had darkly red crusts and small streaks of reddish and dried fluid went down from her arm. Helen could close the holes but she hoped for the blood to go out of her dress since it would be a shame to lose it. Danny put some liquid on the bandage and spoke:

"This could sting a little."

She braced herself and put her chest out what empasized her breasts a little. He began to move over her injuries and didn't pay any attention to her bosoms what unnerved her. She made a disappointed grunt when he looked at his female partner because she moved her shoulder uncomfortably. It wasn't fair. Hanna didn't even notice him having both hands on her shoulder so he waited until she looked at him.

"Hm? Something wrong?"

"Would you please raise your arm? I can't put a bandage around it otherwise." Hanna had to smile because of something in his voice.

She raised her arm but it took her a lot more effort than she expected. After some time he began to wrap the bandage around it. She didn't feel one bit and recognised a small red spot above the injuries: Someone had put a syringe into her body there. She felt ashamed at the thought of that he could see her (very) slightly haired armpit. On the other hand, she thought, why was she pondering about such things while the cop looked at her and not when he didn't?

---

"We'd be pleased to come with you guys but there's something else we have to do." Kim said while getting off the car.

"You should not let our behavior bother you so much, Kim." Raphael spoke while he got off himself and fiddled around in a small bag.

"We are just... we have had experiences that changed our sight of a few things drastically." He still fiddled around with his pocket.

"Dude, what for experiences are that precisely?" Ron asked. To Kim's pleasure he had his firearm safely strapped to the back.

"Hmm... Imanuel wouldn't talk about it but... We saw something very strange when we've been near Kandahar once."

Both teenagers exchanged looks. In the same moment they thought the same thing: Wasn't that Afghanistan's capitol?

"We found two beings wo clutched at each other like frightened children. These beings studdered something about death and strange... beings. Beings that couldn't be destroyed no matter what. One of the two said a tankshell hit one of them in the chest and it just _vanished _in its middle."

He still didn't make it to get the thing out of his bag and mumbled profanities in a language none of them both understood.

"However these two beings had horrible and unexplainable nightmares. They dreamt of something following them no matter where they went in their... disturbingly real dreams. They insisted on being very close to each other at any time and it seemed to dampen the dreams to an almost standable degree. However, they were dismissed from service when their superiours couldn't get any more info from them."

"And what is the point of this story?" Kim asked while trying to remain polite. People rambling about war was something she couldn't stand.

"These two beings had a strange thing on their bodies."

"Aha... aha... u-hu... no, really!..." Kim kept on pretending to listen when Ron shook her shoulder. "What-what? Oh!"

Raphael raised the left part of his upper arm's clothing and revieled something strange. It was a tattoo of unseen and pure blackness that resembled a skull with two wings that stood behind it and stretched to one side each. The blackness in the skull's eyesockets was different from the one its form had. It seemed black in a way that was not black but something else.

For a short moment the empty sockets' blackness seemed darkly green.

Kim stepped back and a strange feeling of tension drove through her body. Ron looked at her with concern but seemed to be more interested in the skull. The blackness seemed disturbingly real and, she couldn't say it otherwise, threedimensional. It seemed so disturbingly intense and dangerous. It was near and yet distant at the same time. It was a contrast and a paradoxon.

Instead of a lower jaw and teeth a small combination of numbers lay underneath the teeth-less upper jaw. They were absolutely symmetric and each of the two numbers had a similar distance to its partner while the two pairs were seperated by a longsword's blade that lay underneath and behind the skull. The sword's grip created a somewhat scary lower jaw with the number as some kind of teeth for both jaws.

_19-13_

She felt like as if something went through her, saw every thing in her, anatomized her and knew every thing she tried to keep secret from even Ron. But Ron didn't seem to be affected in the way she was. Something stung in her head like as if someone had rammed a blade into her, like as if a scalpell cut one single cell away from the rest. It hurt horribly. It was like a light that shone in the night for a second.

_"No coincedence...Wade..."_

And then it was gone._  
_

She fell to the side and weakly rested against the car with one hand. Ron noticed it and barely caught her in time. She made a face that showed intense pain and kept massaging her temples with one hand while the other held against the car for support. After some time it simply stopped and she looked alike, and at Ron, like as if she wouldn't know what had happened.

"KP? Kim are you okay?"

"Wade... Wade-we gotta call Wade!" Ron still held his arms around hers and looked worried. Raphael went on while he rolled the cloth back into place.

"I remember nothing but waking up in a destroyed tank with Imanuel nearby. We were both starving and when we came back to a stage you could call "almost sane" we discovered these... marks. Imanuel, or Dankow as you know him, feels betrayed by the state and his unit whom he served and lived among for so long. And by the way... we found this before we found you and it happened not by chance."

He handed Ron a rather long pistol's holster and its weapon. He took the holster and shook it what made many thin and clanking noises.

"But I already have a-" Then he remembered Kim's detestive oppinion of guns and quietly shook his head. Raphael nodded at her.

"I can't just walk around with guns all day-"

"It is an old german one. High quality. It should keep you safe. At least a little bit... Always stay close to her, especially at night."

"So I should always stay with Kim?"

"Yes... being with someone mentally... relative eases the pressure a little."

Then Raphael said something Ron found to be really odd: "Sometimes they come back..." Raphael looked at something far, far away.

"But I can't just sleep with her every night..." Ron said while looking at Kim, who seemingly didn't listen to anything. She seemed like as if she was busy with someting inside her. Ron knew how she felt since he had seen her like that before. And something else made him blush: Since they were some kind of couple from that day on he actually could sleep with her every night.

What made him bother about it so much was the way they would certainly sleep with each other. His mind kept spinning about the most adoring ways her body could be clothed but the pictures always ended in her unclothed. His body became warm at the thought of them doing more than the kissing they had done earlier. And, for a short moment, an image of her and Lonnie clad in the same thin garments nearly made his mind blow.

"And something else: We've always been together in our... well...We made it out of stuff only one of us hadn't been able to run from. And there was that person..." He looked away like as if watching something far away. "That asked us if we wished to sleep. I don't know why but...

Always say no. No matter who, when, how or why, asks you. Fare well, Kid."

Before Ron could ask something he looked at the car that sped off. Dankow seemed angry at Raphael and Ron somehow knew that their talk was the reason. But Ron knew something else: No matter how much they fought they'd never leave each other. As he looked at Kim he realised that it was the same with her. A huge weight dropped off his shoulders when he thought of why it had been so hard to see that all over the years.

---

Drakken tried to run but failed. Instead of raising speed and distance to their harassers he nearly fell. He barely made it to keep his balance by resting against a wall. Shego barely fiddled the remote control of the hovercar out of his pocket and pressed the big red button. Both she and Drakken had small signal beepers which the car was coming to. It was an idiotproof and nice invention.

To her it seemed like as if it was the only usefull thing Drakken had ever build.

"They" ran past a small shop and she spotted something behind its window. Instead of saying something she gave Drakken a small thrust into the opposite hip and he walked two steps. Only two steps. He would have walked more but it was just the time that stood between the happening and her decision.

The window shattered and something came through it. Multiple somethings to be more exactly. Claws rammed into the window's upper frame and pulled slender forms from the inner ceiling to the upper side of the outer wall. Everything happened rather quickly and something flew through the window and its clawlike blades flung towards her.

She saw small reflections of the dying sun's light as well as her mirrored picture within its long claws. It landed behind the spot where they had stood and turned around. Its grey and skeletal body swung up in a deadly arc while it made a loud and almost deafening sound: A shreek. Drakken screamed, attempted to grab his ears, Shego kept him from doing so since she'd drop then and both fell.

Drakken's idiocy and girlish scream when he dropped seemed to have been their salvation: The strange thing sailed past her head together with its dangerous claws. Its triangled head showed strange patterns of red dots and Shego made it to raise one of her hands. Her own claws, nothing in comparison to its as she saw, roamed through the air. They moved upward and cut into its torso. Small things she couldn't name snapped and it started to scream loudly.

The other things were on top of the buildings wall and seemed undecid about what to do. Both adults clashed into the snow just as the strange creature. It twitched and convulsed strangely before it rolled on its back and stood in a strangely bowed way. Drakken fell into the snow face first and lifted himself up. If it hadn't been such a dangerous moment she would have laughed at his face's profile in the snow.

The other things jumped from the roof while Shego fired a green blast into the first things face. It kept running towards her and she gave Drakken a thrust into the hibs with her leg. He made a few sidesteps and the thing flew past them again. But this time its claws digged into the snow, it used its movements energy to turn around and jumped towards her again. A greenish blast hit it near the throat while Drakken received another thrust to the hip.

He made another sidestep and the thing flew by while her greenish specialty molt its "throat" away. It stood on its knees, tried to keep a strangely orange fluid from getting out of its lower throat and collapsed. It seemed dead but there were still four of its companions. Shego was breathing heavilly since she had put more power than usual into the blast. In fact it had been the first time she had ever used such a powerfull blast.

It exhausted her greatly and she almost collapsed on Drakken's back. The blue man was quiet and kept on stomping through the snow. He seemed resigned and that was not typical for him. He never looked resigned and Shego knew that something was wrong in, or with, him. She would ask him soon.

"I'll ask him later..." She mumbled before exhaustion made her fall unconscious.


	48. Just a dream?

Sorry for the long delay. Here's the new chapter. Please review!

"So what is this about?" Liz asked while their car drove through a curve.

"I'd like to know that too." Helen said and shrugged her shoulder uncomfortably. Strangely the pain was nearly gone.

Tara spoke up: "Okay... I was in Upperton yesterday evening. When I drove back to Middleton in a bus I fell asleep. After some time I woke up and noticed that some of the people got kinda restless. They seemed somewhat aggressive and two people almost started a brawl. Later more and more people started scratching themselves. After that most people fell asleep and I drifted away as well..."

"And what happened then?" Hanna asked without taking her eyes away from Danny.

"I woke up and everyone was at the front of the bus. Some people seemed angry and the driver had stopped the bus. I stood up and someone screamed when two of the aggressive men started attacking all the others. The crowd somewhat dispersed when some climbed over the benches, some more simply ran to the back. The driver turned around and tried to aim a gun at the two but one tossed him into the wheel.

I struggled to see what happened then but the people were in my way. When I got through the driver was bleeding heavilly and leant into his wheel while his gun lay on the ground. One of the two men kept doing something to his back but I couldn't see what since his body blocked view. I got hit by something and before I could react someone lay on top of me. I tried to get away but the man kept pushing me to the ground..."

Her head sunk slightly when the memory came up. Danny nodded at her to go on and Hanna gave her a quick and guessing look.

"I started yelling for help while I tried to keep the man from getting head any closer near mine. His hands grabbed my throat and pressed me from getting air. I heard someone stepping forward from the back of the bus where everyone seemed to be hiding. After that everything went black."

Tara took a long breath in and slowly went on.

"I woke up with a big headache. I leant beside the bus's backdoor and some kind of first aid kit lay infront of me. I saw several syringes and bandages lying around and looked up. Three people kept fighting against two. The two stood in the middle of the bus and everywhere were people who seemed dead. But instead of taking the two down the three got exhausted after some time.

No matter how many blows the two men caught they didn't seem fazed at all. They kept trying to press the men to the ground like mad but they couldn't since the three worked together. Then one of them made a mistake and he was pushed down. After that he got bit repeatedly and stopped moving."

"That's horrible. Didn't they try to escape?" Liz asked. Od grunted and looked out of the window.

"I didn't think of that but I tried to open the backdoor myself. It was stuck and its handle seemed rusted. And since the strange people must have been in the front of the bus all routes must have been blocked. I started kicking the door but it didn't work. When I turned around everything was queit except for a few noises. One of the three men had died and he was chewed upon.

I looked around took one of the syringes. I walked up to the eating man and... his eyes were nothing but... empty balls. He looked at me, smiled and got up. I rammed the syringe into his chest and pressed the liquid out. He stepped forward, shook, staggered and fell to the ground. I looked for another syringe but there was none anymore."

"What was in there?" Hanna asked while turning into a street.

"I don't know for sure... something called 'Valium' I guess. I took more syringes with other stuff and put them into the other man but he didn't stop. Then the other men slowly rose one after one. I ran back to the box and found something new: A gun of sorts. I took it and ran to the front door. It was shut so I pressed every button I could find but the door remained shut. More and more people stood up and I started to panic."

None of the other persons in the car realised that Tara was back in her memories of the bus. None of them knew she was back in the bus. The past came back. It always does. The tightness of the bus came back, the sweat on her palms and hands came back. She felt the handle in hands as well as the sticky and old air in the bus. There was almost no light in the old inside of the elder model.

The stellcabin was a trap and Tara started to feel its pressure. The walls and their metallic straws seemed to stretch when more and more people shakingly got up from their seats and from the floor. A woman beside her put a hand around her legs ankle and pulled her down. With a surprised and frightened yelp she crashed into the ground and hastily grabbed the pistol.

Teeth came closer to her leg and whiteballed eyes stared at her lifelessy but with a dull and neverending hunger.

"Stop! Get away!" The woman didn't let go and instead pulled her closer and under a bench. A man kept twitching spastically before turning his head towards her. In panic Tara twisted and thrust her foot around but it didn't help. The grip started to hurt and her ankle became pale and numb. In an unthought move she rammed the pistol into the woman's head.

After a few thrusts she realised it wouldn't do anything since the woman didn't stop.

Tara was no longer in the police car. Everything came back: The claustrophobia, the feeling of dread and helplessness, the strange people and the cold metal of the bus's floor. Tara was back in her memories, back in the moment that she had thought of and nothing was there to stop the woman.

Tara did not feel the arm that wrapped around her back when her body leant into Liz. Instead she saw a knife coming from somewhere above the bench. In her limited vision she saw the blade go into the womans head but she couldn't see who had put it there. The man started to crawl towards her and not a single one of her muslces moved.

Before his empty eyes and his strong arms gripped her something pulled her up. Before she knew it Hope stood before her, rammed the knife into the man's head and looked at her. The knife seemed to be an army-issued one and small drops of pinkish stuff dripped from it.

"Tara? You okay?"

The voice seemed to be two: Liz, inside the now, said it and Hope, in the past, spoke it as well. Soft hands wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her into a hug when Hope mumbled soothing words just as much as Liz did so. The young blonde's body remained stiff and the only thing Tara felt was a hollow emptieness.

"You take that flaregun and shoot those people while I make sure no one gets at our sides. Okay?"

Tara's body nodded without understanding the entire situation. Somehow her hands took up the flaregun and aimed it at the corridor while Hope moved aside. With a dull plop the thing came out and became a reddish ball of light. Hope shielded her ears and the nearly deafening howl of the flare came. It flew towards most of the persons and bathed them in sickening light.

The thing cmae near someone's head and half of its face simply molt to undefinable puddles of something when the red ball flew past the other half kept gazing at the two girls like as if nothing had happened. The flare flew through under the armpit of an almost gigantic man and his arm fell to the ground with a simple thud. The third person was hit right in the upper chest by the burning red ball.

It burnt its way through the man with a seemingly infinite patience. There were no flames since it was simply too hot and too fast to burn. Hope ran forward and thrust her knife into the halfed man's face and forced him to the ground. After that she stabbed the armless man in the jaw and let him drop to the ground.

Tara didn't count the stabs nor did she really have any perception left for them. They reached the door when someone lunged at her from one of the benches. Hope was about to press every single button to open the door but the man bumped into her. Tara and Hope both screamed in surprise when the man bit into Hope's hand. She dropped the knife, turned around and ran as fast as she could.

The man was just the one who would harass her for the rest of the entire memory. But something was different from the reality that had happened. His face slowly vanished before her eyes and blackness replaced it. Redness appeared within his eyes and absorbed everything. Tara did something she hadn't done "back then".

She made a step back and then another one. In what seemed have been an instant she was near the emergency exit's door but it was still stuck. Her hands wrapped around the grip and she pressed it again and again. It didn't budge. She shot a look over her shoulder and saw a black figure. It slowly rose in height and blackened straws of thin substance flowed from every other person in the entire room.

She tried the handle once more but it did not budge. Two other men came towards her what wasn't the way it "had been" but it somehow "was". It existed against any laws and was there even though it shouldn't be. The men came closer and they tried to grab her. She barely made it to toss the first one off her but the second one pushed her into the wall.

Her back ached heavilly since the handle lay in her back but the man obviously didn't care for that. A stinging pain entered her shoulder when he rammed his teeth into her skin and ripped it out of her body. She tried to fend him off but the pain was too intense to raise her second arm. Not that both arms would have helped anyway.

He bit deeper and Tara heard something crack and snap loudly. It was the thin bone that went from the throat to the shoulder's joint. It crippled her arm completely and not only the pain made her cry. The man stood up to make way for the second one but something made him stop. An apocalyptic sound, almost like ritting fabric but louder, harder and purely diabolic, ran through the man and ripped him apart.

Thin and yellow-greyish lances cut through seemingly everything inside the entire room and sailed over her. With shut eyes Tara turned her face away when blood fell on her face. Small sparkles of blood ran down her lips and thin pieces of cut metal cut her face very slightly. She tried to keep them from doing so but her lips quievered and small metallic, sharp and bloodstained pieces of metal ran into her mouth.

They smaller than sand but a lot more digusting and painfull. They burnt, stung and the blood that was on it was enough to make her enough. Tara could no longer hold herself back and tears flowed freely from her cheeks. Some of them fell into the bite and made it burn even more. Loud sobs fought their way out of her tongue and some of the metalshards flowed into her throat where they cut her from the inside.

Her sobs became more and more bloody and she knew that she was dying. Her main artery bled from the burning shards and even if she could survive the injuries there were still more of the people. Or were they? Her eyes opened and she saw the figure walking towards her with a steady and slow pace. A part of it, most presumably its right arm, went to its back.

It came back with a small cylinder in its hand and a similar one dropped to the ground, right beside a cut-off arm. It was purely black.

In that moment a young blonde lady realised that she would not be saved. It was not her saviour that came for her even though it seemed to be black. But her saviour didn't have bloodred eyes that burnt even more intense than the flares had done without illuminating anything. They seemed to take something from her, drew something away from her, stole it from her and raped her mind.

She cried even harder and it lead the cylinder to something's left side. It made a few moves and after a few metallic noises it held the thing at one of the small two straws that were at its front. Everything about the figure seemed aggressive, hatefilled and full of bloodlust. It was the perfect killer. And it came for her.

In a short moment her mind had hoped it to be Max within the armor. But his eyes hadn't been so bloodred. She saw the weapon and its horrific details. Max had used just the same kind of gun when he had been protecting them. Her heart snapped at the thought of him.

He was dead.

She didn't know how but somehow knew it. She remembered that one of these men had come for them and that it had made Bonnie collapse. Bonnie... at the thought of her both sadness and hatred filled her mind. The blackened man marched forwards and past broken bodies, crumbled hulls and souls that lay in ashes.

Bonnie. The closer the man came the more hatred upon her came up. It was her fault that Max had stayed behind. It was all her fault. The useless bitch had murdered both of them. Tara couldn't understand why he had stayed with HER of all people while she treated him like dirt. The man came closer and something else came to meet her vanishing memories.

It gripped her from behind and slowly pulled her closer. A loud creek came and the door in the bus opened. She fell out of it and she saw something really disturning:

Pure blackness: There was nothing around the bus and the bus slowly vanished from sight. Two red flares looked at her but she fell deeper and deeper even though there was no gravity. Her useless arm stretched forward and her eyes slowly closed themselves. She shot the arm a curious look and saw that it moved without any effort which wouldn't be possible with her broken bone.

There was something in her throat that made her feel nice. Something fuzzy went through it and filled her heart with a gentle and tender warmth. Something warm lay behind her and enveloped her back when the bus vanished entirely. She somewhat turned around, if one can do that in free fall, and looked at what was there.

It was something grey that lay around her chest, belly and legs. An intensly warm but not hot feeling seared nicely through her body. Tara felt her body become all fuzzy and warm when it washed over her body. Her breasts became nicely warm and stiff when it gently pressed against her. There were no more cuts on her face and she moved a little closer.

There was a cuddly warmth within whatever it was and Tara wanted to keep close to it not matter what. It seemed to lose stuff at the outer rims of its form when Tara pulled closer. She cuddled herself into it, pulled her legs up, wrapped her arms around it and closed her eyes. Then it hit her.

Could it be? Was there truly a way it could be? She looked at it and wanted it to be there. She longed, hoped and wished for a face to be there. His face.

"Max? Is that you?"


	49. Merry christmas wishes!

Merry christmas to everyone! The next chapter is already done by half. And please review I would really appreciate it!  



	50. Drakken and the cops

Everything was blackness. Then, after some time, there was a dim light. A long and thin floor with two doors at one and one at the other side came into view. The single door was open but the room itself could not be seen since it lay in darkness. Two walls made the long floor become a thin line, almost like a cable or pipe. A hint of claustrophoby lay in the long but also somehow thin corridor.

The walls were painted in a soft green color but small bits of the walls and color were already missing. The entire floor and its walls looked old and dusty, the smell of old air that had stood still for long times hung in the air. It was a subtle whitness of the decay that had grown in the past times. Dim greenish light weakly illuminated the floor.

Old pieces of furniture decorated the floor but their looks only increased the look of ages ago. Color blistered away from them in pieces and they looked like as if no one had used them for a long time. They hightened the feeling of unease the most people would feel with their sharp edges and splintered woods. Dark shadows extended from their sharp and blistered woods on which one could easily cut himself.

A small teddy lay near the door to the blackened room. A feeling of dread came from its small arm that stretched into the floor while its shape slowly vanished in the blackness of the room that lay behind. Thin strays of greenish light came out of gaps between the door at the floor's long end and its frame. They shone from the left and right of the floor, moved up and down in a visible pattern that was always the same.

It would always be the same pattern. The thin rays of greenish hellfire in the shape of light moved over the small desk, its sharp edges put cornered shadows into what lay behind it. The entire room became absolutely black except for the small rays that danced through the floor. And then, like as if it had not been real, like as if it had not been there, it all vanished.

---

Crunch-crunch-crunch a pair of feet that carried four was the sound it made when it stepped through the snow underneath. Hard breaths made clouds of thin smoke appear in the sky of the dying day. A figure made its way through a landscape of white in which the shadows grew just as the danger.

The figure almost looked like a hunchback until the eye realised it was two. The first was a male with blueish skin and a samecolored labcoat while the one that was carried was a woman in a green jumpsuit. The man, Doctor Drakken was his name, made his way with steps that mirrored his exhaustion just as much as his desperation.

Small groups of persons walked, stumbled or limped after them. They came from small sideyards, through thin alleys and shadowy gossips. They sook to find, get and surround the running man. A cynic manhunt had begun. Two ravens sat on a nearby rooftop and looked at what happened underneath their wings. They could fly away from what followed them whenever they wanted.

Drakken could not do so.

He stepped forward and huffed loudly. The hovercar should come any moment. Shego shifted uneasily on his back and groaned slightly but did not wake up again. Neither he nor her had ever seen her fire off such a powerfull blast. From what he could tell it had exhausted her greatly and, together with the injuries, made her fall unconscious.

From the left two men came running towards him. One of them started yelling, raised a mace of sorts and jumped into the air while the other turned to walk behind Drakken. Said doctor had to stop walking forward to not get his head mashed in when the man came down and took a step back. Somewhere inside his head it clicked. Something from the stoneage came active.

Normally the blue man would have screamed like a little girl but this time it was different. He stepped upon the man's hand that lay on the grip and brought both the weapon and its wielder into a bad position. He shoved his foot a little around what created an angerfilled shout by the man and a disturbingly nice sound of cracking.

However, Drakken had not thought about the second man who wrapped his arm around him and Shego from behind. He was trapped. The first man stood up and a sadistic smile came to his lips while the eyes were filled with lust for murder and a tone of red Drakken had not seen before. In the middle of the eye's iris a small red dot glowed freely what was, anatomicly seen, nearly impossible without plastic surgery.

Drakken's mind gave out and something else took over. He didn't see the first man's mace that came down for his head since something deep inside his body made his head shoot back with high speed. With a surprised grunt the second man jerked back just a little and Drakken let go off Shego. The unconscious woman fell back and into the man what made him fall unto the ground with a woman that blocked him from getting up again.

For a short moment there was a hint of regret for having let her fall down but it was quickly subdued. The mace only barely flung by his head horizontically and the blue man's leg jerked forward. It kicked against his opponent's lower leg and stomped on his foot. The swing of the mace made the man turn to much. He had too much swing since Drakken's head would have taken up the weapon's movement.

Would have.

Instead Drakken gripped the man's shoulders and made him turn around completely. The blocked leg could not turn among what made the man scream up while he fell and, what joyed Drakken very much, dropped the mace. Both men lay on the ground when the mace found a new owner.

The weapon felt somewhat good in his hands when Drakken brought the weapon down on the man's head. With one vertical swipe Drakken wiped the grin off his face. A life was ended when a skull broke in and made its brain became a mushed potato. Man number two pushed Shego off himself and stood up. He pulled out a small knife and ran up to his new foe.

Drakken simply jumped aside, turned around brought the mace down on the man's spine. It made a loud noise of cracking and the man yelled up but turned around. He brought an iron bar, which must have been hidden under his jacket, up to Drakken's chest. The blow was hard but it didn't stop the blue man.

Thoughts of hatred and unforgiveness flashed up and Drakken rammed the mace straingt forward. It tossed the man forward and made him stumble. He lost his balance and Drakken punished it with a hard blow to the knee. The man collapsed sideways when his legs got pulled away to the opposite side and he lay there like a fish.

Drakken hadn't noticed the other people that came up from around him during the fight. They came closer but they were the strange ones and not the redeyed ones. Drakken quickly ran back to Shego and shook her. At first there was nothing but then groans escaped her soft and full lips. When they opened just a bit Drakken felt the same feeling of pulling and addiction he had felt around her lips before.

Something began to burn up inside him and he wrapped his arms around her tender waist. He pulled her body up and something inside screamed for the woman in his hands. It was the first time Drakken really noticed how much of a woman his assistant actually was. He tried to shake the thoughts away and pulled her up to eyesight. Her hips bumped against his and a feeling of heat and tension, but also of a fine relaxation streamed through him.

He put Shego unto his shoulder after putting the mace to rest at his belt and made the first carefull steps. He walked into a large open backyard and moved through a small gap. Steps sounded behind him and showed that he was still being followed. He walked through a door and closed. After that he spotted a huge trash-container.

He sat Shego down on a huge pack of cardboxes and started to shove the container behind the door. After a few hard shoves the container blocked the small door. Small bangs hammered against the door and he began to see fingers touching the wall's upper edges to pull bodies up. The blue man pulled Shego back to his shoulder and looked around.

It was a rather long and thin corridor. To the left and right were buildings. On the left side was a door but it was blocked by an old lock and the cardboxes. A broken window lay above the said door. On the far end of the corridor steelbars shaped a shut door. Everything seemed familiar in a strange way.

_Hass Hass Hass..._

Drakken could swear he had heard whispers of some sort, whispers that had sounded like someone who quietly drew breath or spoke very silently. He shook his head and took Shego back upon his shoulder. The walls seemed familiar but also unknown and Drakken felt like as if he had been there before.

He looked to the right and already knew that a brick stuck out of the wall. On the left side was a door but Drakken knew without trying that it was shut. The flattened cardboxes would need to much time anyway. And in the moment in which Drakken thought about time he felt how strange the word started to feel.

He knew he had been there but somehow he had been not. Maybe he had not been there _yet_? But somehow "yet" seemed strangely bend.

_Hass Hass Hass Hass..._

The walls seemed to strenghten, take up, reflect and return whatever he believed to hear. He knew that all these things happened at the same time but it could simply not be. But then, no matter how impossible it was, it seemed to happen at the same time. And again Drakken felt how bendable and strangely odd time could be.

He made a few steps and felt like as if he had made them before. He rested against a wall in a way he believed to have done before. He made steps that had been done before and the snow seemed not to fresh at some places. Did he feel something that had been felt before? Was what he felt just a mimikri of something that had been felt before? He did not know, at least not for sure.

_Hass Hass HASS..._

Whatever was there became louder and it made the blue man's head dizzy. He blinked sevaral times and felt something strange. For a short moment he could see a person walking through the snow. He felt, heard and smelt the footprints and heard voices that came from somewhere infront of the corridors door. Then he blinked again and it was gone.

A strange feeling of desperation struck him when he walked on. He felt strangely followed and pursued. He walked further towards the door and Shego groaned slightly and mumbled something he could not understand. He felt noises escape her mouth when he finally reached the door's knob. Barbed wire hung above it and small parts of it had red sparkles. Blood.

_Hass HASS HASS..._

Again his head begun to feel odd but this time it started to ache heavilly. The innards of his head began to throb and sqeeze when he saw a hand that was not mine wring the knob around desperatly. Then it was gone and his own hand lay around the knob. He knew it would be shut and yelled out:

"Is someone there?"

Drakken heard steps that came from the front and right side while another loud noise came from behind. He looked back as good as he could and saw that the door had been shoved open. People came through it and ran for him in their strange and shuffling way. Drakken bit his lip and ratled at the bars like a prisoner at his cage.

A person in a black uniform came to the door. It was a cop. Steps came from behind.

"Hey! You're... " He said with determination and then started becoming a little uncertain: "That guy... you know who I mean!"

"Open the door they're after me!" The blue man answered in a fast way.

"You're arrested Mister! Finally something happens in this stupid town." The cop said but refused to open the door.

"No way! I didn't do anything!"

"Don't try to fool ME Mister... ach I don't care, you're arrested! And your strange friends too!"

Drakken realised that he wouldn't get anywhere if the "discussion" went on that way and decid to use a little trick.

"You can only arrest me when the door's open. Otherwise I'm gonna run away and you can meet my friends there."

The cop drew his pistol, opened the door with a key and... Something came. Drakken couldn't put a finger on it at first.

_HASS HASS HASS..._

It was "it" again. A feeling of anger rose when Drakken heard it and put a hand on his mace. Then he realised that the cops would separate him and Shego in prison what made him feel desparate and lonesome. After that he spotted a bloody handprint on the right wall. It looked like as if someone had pushed himself away and for a moment Drakken saw a person do just that.

He couldn't make out any details but it was the same person he had seen walking through the corridor. Pure hatred grew inside his heart and it mixed with his desparation and the wish to not land in prison. He withdrew the mace and thrust it forward. Drakken was no professional at judging cops but he knew the man was some kind of rookie or beginner. Otherwise he would have been shot already.

The cop looked up, raised his pistol and tried to aim. But the mace was faster. It tossed his hand aside violently and the weapon missfired into one of the people that came from behind. A loud and lazy groan came when Drakken tossed his knee into the cops belly. The man collapsed, Drakken kicked the door shut and slowly put Shego down on a small set of stairs on the left side.

He kicked the man again to make sure he wouldn't rise up again. And even though it made him feel bad a part of him knew it was necessary. Then Drakken saw the sign: It was a small red line of plasticmade paper that stretched over the shut door of the old warehouse:

Police, do not cross. And above the door was a small grey sign with sharp edges. A 19 stood within the quadratic sign. 19.

The outline of a person was marked with white chalk on the ground. Drakken ran around a corner and saw a patrolcar standing there. A cop got out of it and looked at the blue man with confusion in his face.

"What are you doing here, mister?"

"There are violent people around the corner! They hurt my wife and your partner!"

The man's eyes widened, he drew his pistol and ran past Drakken. A loud smashing noise came and two loud sounds echoed through the upcoming night. Drakken came around the corner again and for a short moment he saw a figure come out of the door. Even though he couldn't see the person itself clearly the outlines of its machinegun were clear as ever. For a moment he was remembered of Kim and Ronald.

But then the figure slowly changed. The noise of its shoes was replaced by nothing and its form darkened. But the most remarkable thing was the eyes: They hadn't been there before when reddened orbs flared up from wherever they had hidden before. Feelings of tension and anger rose within Drakken's interior when they torched into him.

The weapon was quickly replaced through a piece of blackness that grew out of the black things middle and side. It grew into a blackened but perfectly visible piece of metal that sook his blood. He saw how several straws, screws, edges and outlines literally grew out of the figure and completed into a weapon that seemed even more dangerous that it looked like.

The urge to run away became nigh unstandable. The blue man did what he was good at: He ran around the corner. In a thoughtless movement he ran towards Shego, took her up and looked at the two cops. Both shot into the mass of persons that hammered against the steelmade door. None of the bullets seemed to stop the crowd even though Drakken could see the blows impact on their bodies.

Then the blackened man suddenly stood within the crowd. He moved past and sometimes seemingly through them. Those people that seemed somewhat normal (except for the red in their eyes) became even angrier and two of them were already climbing over the barbwired frame. One of the cops reloaded his pistol and one of the two men was stricken. He fell to the ground infront of the door and remained there.

The other one rammed his fist into the still firing cop and shoved him down. The other one started firing and Drakken ran away. He made a few steps and the pressure in his head, which was like as if someone opened and shut his head again and again, seized a very little bit. Then the door that lay behind the police's signs started burning away from its middle. The flames burnt through the doors middle within an eyes blink.

After that two reddened spots flared up and Drakkens head felt like as if it was about to burst intwo. One of the cops moved backwards while firing into something out of sight. From behind came noises like the one of ripping fabric. They were hellishly loud and nearly three dozens of greyish-orange lances sped through the air from somewhere behind the corner. A body was torn to shreds and thrown backwards.

Drakken began to understand why the Villain's Digest forbid firearms: The lances flew through the man and small fountains of blood followed them. Huge holes lay wherever flesh could not withstand steel. The man was flung around like a ragdoll under the dozens of impacts and pieces from his body where put away and landed somewhere behind the crippled torso and the cut left legs stump.

And then the blackened man stepped past the corpse and its reddened eyes looked at the dead body for just a moment. Surprisingly enough the revolver in the mans hand raised together with his head whose jaw was cut off. The blackened man lowered his weapon and in the same moment the revolver and the other weapon fired.

The cops head got squashed like melon and a huge hole got blown into the blackened mans head. Then something happened that Drakken would never forget. The figure turned towards him and one red eye went into him. Slowly the blackness that the man consisted of grew into the old form like as if nothing had happened. And as soon as the form was complete again the second eye flared up again. It torched its way into the blue man's mind like the bullets through the corpse.

The pressure increased.

He turned around and ran only to see into the flaming remains of the doors outer frame. Two reddened eyes came out of the shadow and with it came another blackened shape. It differed in looking slightly different, almost like someone who wore a mantle or labcoat of sorts. The entire shape was signed different by its weapon: It was a flamethrower with a small blueish flame that came out of the front.

Drakken knew what these people wanted to do to him and Shego so he ran towards the car. The two things went after him with a stoicly calm way of walking. The flamerman walked sideways to cut his way off while the other led an arm to his back while his weapon pointed downwards. The two straws of its bipod created a frightening shadow that danced, together with burning door's light, over the dead body.

Then the other people came. The flamerman turned around, pointed his muzzle at them and let a stream of fire fly at them. Drakken felt a strange mixture of relief and pity: The other blackened man was gone for just a moment while the other was busy. But the burning people were something he didn't want to see.

"Not even Kim Possible deserves something like these blackened men." Drakken muttered to himself what made Shego murmur softly. He pulled her closer to his chest since he carried her bridestyle. She moved her seemingly asleep her head closer to his shoulder and let it rest there. He was happy for that she didn't have to see these things.

Where these men on his side? He didn't know if they were his enemy or not. Had they slain the cops and these people to keep him safe? He doubted it seriously since they kept giving him the strong headache. And murderers that didn't bother one little bit with ending lifes weren't his league either.

He turned around one last time to see a solid wall of fire and the flamerman. He turned around when Drakken's eyes focused on him and he did so with an unnerving slowlieness. It stepped towards with a frighteningly stoic calmness. Out of the flames a body fell forward and its outstretched arm barely escaped the flames grasp.

Then a couple of reddened eyes flared up within the blackness that lay between flames and the second blackened man stepped through the fire. He didn't mind the flames one bit, nor did he seem to pay them any credit. His left arm returned from its back and brought a cylinder to the weapons side. He attached it and pulled a small lever on the other side back. It snatched forth with a loud metallic noise.

That was it for Drakken. All doubts were out of the way: They wanted to kill him for sure. He ran to the car, opened the door and saw the first good thing of the day: A key that stuck. He put Shego down of the front passengers seat and sat down himself. He started the engine and the vehicle sped forward. When he came past the burned door he saw the wall of flames on the one side and drove away to the other.

He saw the blackend figures that walked after him with their stoic walk. He knew they were after him and Shego. When his eyes looked into the reddened eyes the strange voices whispered in his head:

_Hass Hass Hass..._

He didn't know what _Hass_ meant but it was what made these people murder. Something told Drakken he hadn't met them for the last time.


	51. Shego, her teddy and the blackened men

Gimme some reviews! Please! I need them! Anonymous ones are accepted as well, if you are not an author, hell even if you aren't registered on it doesn't make a difference! Give me some reviews, please, I need them to continue.

---

Blackness spread through the room. It was the same room as in the last chapter, with the sharpened shadows, the endangering green light and the teddy that lay lonely in a door to a blackened room. But what had not happened before was that a person stepped through the door in the far end of the corridor. The other doors lay on the sides of the long corridor.

When it was about to close the door its shape was the only recognisable thing. Behind the figure lay a sway of hellish green light, or fire, if one could see it as a such. It was a man and it held something in its hands. The thing's tip moved into the other hand, which was open, again and again. It looked a little bit like a teacher or prisonguard that clapped its baton while looking for failing students or misdoing prisoners.

In this case there wasn't much of a difference.

The corridor seemed to stretch further, reality seemed to bend, doors remained with their old lenght while new doors seemingly appeared and the corridor grew longer. The figure stepped forward with long and heavy strides. It seemed to move over the horribly long distance with inhuman ease. A small figure at the other part of the corridor tried to flee.

"Tsk tsk... so promising..." The figure said in a tone that betrayed any emotion.

The figure ran away from the harasser and its baton but its steps were futile, small and slow. The further it sped the further the door stretched away. After what seemed to be an eternity the figure was still not at the door. It looked at its intended goal and in just that moment of taking its eyes from the predator it took the distance in a seemingly timeless step. The small figure was cornered.

The small teddy didn't notice anything of it, nor could it care since it was dead matter and not a living being. Beside it something stepped out of the shadows. Something black stepped onto the cold floor beside the teddy. It was just as lifeless as the small piece of toy and artificial fur.

"So promising..."

Greenish hell-light had barely lit the floor before but from then on something absorbed it. "Absorb" was not the correct term but the one that was most grippable for the human mind. The light vanished when something stepped up behind the baton-wielder. It slowly turned around only to vanish in a ghostly shape of pure blackness. The teddy was the only one who knew that it hadn't happened before, hadn't happened yet.

It _shouldn't_ have happened but it did. It should not be happening.

Both figures who remained, the one small and harmless and the other one black and inunderstandable, stood before each other. There was a short moment of hope, a soft flicker of light in the smaller things eyes. It was a person. And then the other thing stepped forward, the entire corridor darkened while greenish light tried to penetrate its darkness from behind in protest and fear.

It did not change a thing.

Something akin to an arm of blackness came towards the small figure that began to cry. Its old and real predator had been eaten by a bigger one and it was still the victim. An intense feeling of cold and fear made the young persons body shiver heavilly when it came towards the figure. It was entirely quiet except for one thing:

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa..." A small puff of cold, like the one from a person that breathes out in a cold winter, appeared. But it was not a normal, nor a natural one. It was a cold that came from something else, it was nothing but an interpretation of something the figure couldn't understand. Neither its body nor its mind could perceive what the blackened man and its bloodred flaring eyes did.

Then everything suddenly vanished.

---

Drakken's car sped away from the wall of fire. Three figures walked through the flames with their slow and unstoppable pace. What unnerved Drakken to the point of blank fear was their disregard for anything else but him. The blackened foglike boots moved forward with their long, slow and confident strides. The flames moved to every spot their feet came down upon.

Drakken looked back to the street infront of him and, just a moment later, back again. His eyes widened in lack of understanding for what was not allowed to be:

They were gone.

Nothing but flames and darkness remained. He looked at Shego who mourned slightly and uneasily shifted in her seat. He remembered something he had heard about police cars and looked between the two front seats: A shotgun lay there and he took it to his lap. After that he looked into the glovefold and found a box with 12-gauge shells. The rifle in his lap was rather short since it had no wooden shaft and its barrel looked shortened.

He frowned at the thought of having to use such an unvillainy weapon. Then he looked at Shego. Her bloody bandages and her uneasy shifting put the very last doubts aside. He loaded the weapon with one hand what made clicking noises with every shell. He was about to shake Shego to wake her up when something terribly loud nearly bursted his ears.

It came from the roof and something made the metal screech horribly. He looked up and, just in time, ducked his head. Something whooshed by and Drakken rit the steering wheels aside. He looked up and saw something horrible. A small piece of the roof was cut out. The thing was thin, grey and looked like some kind of skeletall predator. Long claws stood at its thin fingers and small shards and splinters of the roof's steel hung on them.

Its head was some kind of triangle and with horrible mouthtools that would normally remain unseen but came to view because it stood above him. Reddish lights formed a strangely natural symmetryc net of flaring eyes. Drakken stared into these hollow balls, they looked like small craters in a moonscape within the even surface of the triangle.

The car slowed down since Drakken had his feet off the speedpedal and his eyes stared into the triangeld red net. It stood there, quiet, dangerous, harmfull but patient. Its head tilted slightly and the reddened spots seemed to shift like small radar dishes. Drakken's fear slowly went down a little bit when the thing remained strangely dormant. Drakken cast another look on the road without moving his head.

The car wasn't about to crash into something. Two hands slowly wrapped around the shotgun.

"Urrrrrmmmgrngrng...mmmmmmmm..."

Shego moaned slightly, everything started to happen in a blur. The thing bent down, made a horrible shreeking noise, its mouthtools opened to reveal a horribly insectoid and chitinous maw. It moved forward, Drakken raised his shotgun in panic, it roared loudly, the muzzleflash and semingly hit the thing in its face just as the lead, its claw digged into nothing instead of Shego and it fell from the car and into blackness.

There was an earie silence after that. The only noises were his own thumping heart, Shego's soft murmours while she slowly woke up and the slowing engine. He slowly lowered the shotgun and looked back at the street. His back ached from the sudden stretching and something made him feel like as if it wasn't over yet.

---

"Okay Ron our next stop is the hospital. That's the nearest spot on our list."

"Yeah, you mean those flaregun's right?"

"Yep."

They started walking towards the hospital. Kim knew Middleton well enough to find the hospital. After about fifteen minutes of walking they reached the entrance of the huge building. All lights were shut off and only the parking lots lanterns made a dim light in the growing night. It wasn't fully dark yet but their current position lay between the building and the sun, hence inside its shadow.

Kim shivered and Ron put a hand on her hip. There was just the barest hint of him pulling her close. She smiled at him and put her head on his shoulder. Ron went away and pretended to take a jacket off that wasn't there. He then offered her the invisible jacket with his hands. She giggled and moved her back towards his chest. His hands slowly moved over shoulder and down her upper chest.

They slowly moved over her body downwards while gently rubbing what lay underneath. Kim was about to take his hands away when he made her reason to do so vanish: Instead of moving over her bosoms he went down her sides and pulled her closer. His hands came to a stop on her unclad bellybutton and covered it with cuddly warmth. Then he kissed her shoulders and gently nagged on a small part of skin.

Kim enjoyed that little gesture and snuggled herself into his body. She wasn't used to most of the cupple-stuff but she was a quick learner.

---

Suddenly everything came back to reality. It had a more odd picture than the one Shego had expected. It was a shotgun that fired off right infront of her face and into something grey and trianglish to her right. Whatever it was, its sound of being smashed together with the nigh deafening blast of the firearm made a startling wake-up.

Something grabbed her collar from the outside and she saw a strange triangleed head stare at her. It was rit ahalf and its claw seemed to hold on her. She blinked a few times before realising that it was dead. Her hand moved like in a trance and put the things claw out of the sindow. Shego looked out of the window and after the corpse. It rolled into the snow and seized moving.

Then came a loud and somewhat dull THHUUUTS and a different clank-clank. Her head moved around in that strangely unreal trance and she saw Drakken hold a short rifle into another grey things head. He was having a powerstruggle over the steering wheel with it. She thought about it and came to the conclusion that helping Drakken would certainly help get that strange haze away.

And she couldn't yell the shit out of him if the car crashed.

A green bolt caught it by surprise, it sreeched loudly and Drakken put the gun through the hole in the roof. With a loud THUUDT the grey thing got smashed up into the air while its arms flayed around helplessy. It vanished into the growing night, never to appear again. Drakken breathed heavily and brought the car to a halt. After that he looked at her.

"Shego! We should-"

"THANK YOU for waking me up with that thing!" She snorted sarcastically.

"I had noc choice and no death ray at hand!" Then his face changed to worry: "Are you better? You shouldn't have overdone it with that-"

"I know. You should be thankfull for saving your ass from that thing. If i hadn't pushed into your hip-"

"Well I was busy with carrying you around and keeping hordes of people from killing us! And I fooled the cops too!"

"How amazing Drakken. As if THAT was hard to do!"

None of the two noticed something shifting in a shadow nearby. Something within the shadows slowly rose to a tall human's height.

"If you've got to carry someone unconscious around it is!" Drakken stated while his voice became somewhat more agressive.

"I wouldn't have become unconscious if you moron hadn't stayed in the hospital!"

Two flares lit up in the darkness and it and a shape or pure blackness shifted through the darkness and upon the street.

"I hadn't stayed if there if you hadn't yelled at me you whore!" Shego was too enangered to notice that it was the very first time Drakken insulted her. The thing came closer.

"Shut up you useless bastard! None of your plans work!" The shape moved closer.

"Oh yeah? YOU never work you useless toy, you!" It came closer but remained unnoticed. Its eyes became brighter the closer it got. "And you even think you can treat your master this way? I tell you WHAT you are. Useless! You were only accepted because you were the least worst of henchmen and because I pittied you!" Shego's anger slowly faded away and into something else. IT came closer, yet unnoticed.

Then a greyish claw digged into the door on Drakken's side and one of the grey thing pulled itself up. It screeched loudly and its mouthtools set into an attackstance. Nonetheless Drakken did not regard it. Instead he suddenly hefted the shotgun around and shot it in the face wiithout even looking at it. He killed it like as if it was just a minour nuisiance. Nothing but hatred stood in his eyes.

"You're nothing but useless and you'll always be! And now you're even less than before, you're a stupid little cripple with no value, no output, one who cannot even WALK alone!" His voice raised to a violent way from which Shego didn't even know that he posessed it.

"And now YOU dare to insult me? I shot these things, I got you into the car and I got us away from the cops! You've been nothin but a hinderence to me for long enough. I needed you for long enough but now I have something better and far more usefull."

Then he aimed the rifle at her and ejected the old shell. "THIS thing here doesn't talk back, it doesn't need to get paid and it doesn't-"

Shego couldn't believe what happened. The things he said were the only things that could truly hurt her. It was harder than any blow, stronger than any attack and deadlier than any gunwound:

It was rejection. He was dropping her.

"fail me like you did! And it gives me the solution for the problem that's been bugging me for far too long: Your incompetence, presence, and Kim Possible!" He smiled wickedly. "Convenient isn't it? Why should I let you rot away in the gossip if one shell for about 12 FUCKING DOLLARS CAN HANDLE THIS!"

Shego began to cry. She could handle anything except for Drakken rejecting her. It was the second time within 24 hours that she saw just how important he was for her. And then she saw IT. It stood behind Drakken and its gun pointed at him. Its red orbs flared even stronger while he kept yelling her but the eyes droned out any noise. There was just the reddened flares anymore. They tore into her.

Then she noticed how something in Drakken's eyes vanished, got drained awy, left, seized existance. She felt how the same was happening to her when his lips moved around and his face went hard as stone. Something inside her snapped and her hand lit up in a green that was new. It was common but yet unknown. It was new and yet old at the same time. It was a contrast. It was perfect. It was a sickeningly greenish hellfire that even Satan would be frightened off.

It was the same green like the one in the corridor.

---

"So what do we do now?" Liz asked.

"I'll call Mrs Possible to get her to the hospital. We should go there too." Tara said while nodding towards Helen who seemed to be blinking pretty often. Her head slightly moved back and forth in a steady rythm.

"We could get some penicillin for your friend there, too."

And so it was settled. Hanna couldn't keep her eyes away from the man beside her, Liz seemed to examine Crystal's injury together with said man but her eyes seemed more focused on the weapon the girl lay upon. Od kept looking out of the window and Helen was occupied with keeping her head from bumping on the steering wheel and driving at the same time.

Tara took her cellphone.

---

Shego rammed her injured hand into the gun's side and Drakken's shot went into the seat behind her. The thing raised its gun with inhuman speed but Shego was faster. A sickeningly green bolt of lightning sped towards the thing, went through it and the weapon. It seemed to seize existance within the thing's grasp but something inside the weapon didn't stop being there.

A huge hole was punched into its middle but the reddened flares remained. Shego got angry and desparate since Drakken tried to put the gun at her again. She ducked and pressed her now unlit arm on his leg, which lay on pedal for the clutch, and switched to the first gear with the other hand. Drakken shot again but Shego had moved with superhuman speed and he hadn't been able to track her.

Buckshot went through the already destroyed window, the car started accelerating and with last bit of willpower Shego held the lever for switching gears long enough to not make the engine stop completely. Then the pain came and, after agonizing moments of flames within her shoulder, blissfull unconsciousness took its place.

---

Drakken realised that the gun in his hands was empty. Then he found out that the car was moving forward. Then he noticed the wall coming closer. He screamed up but it was too late: The car hit the wall. However, the car wasn't faster than ten kilomters the hour. After the "crash" Drakken looked for Shego and found her head resting calmly on his lap. At first he nearly panicked, then naughty thoughts came and then he realised that it was Shego.

"Ufff..."

He slowly picked her head up and looked at her. She had cried and she seemed highly exhausted. Then he remembered that HE had made her cry. Everything came back like memories after a night with too many drinks: How he had shot at her, the words he had said and everything else. Everything except for the blackened man that had been behind him came back to memory.

"Shego! Shego wake up!"

He shook her heavily and after some time she murmured lightly. He sighed loudly until the wound in her shoulder came to view. She had lost blood again and the suit and bandage were soaked with red. His thoughts circled around what had happened if he had hit her.

Then he spotted the blackened man in the car's mirrors.

"Shego! Wake up you've got to wake up now, please!"

A loud beep came from his belt and he knew what it was: The hovercar. It flew behind the blackened man and then sped towards him. He turned around and looked at the hovercar. He raised the gun in his hands and fired at the car. Drakken's eyes widened with shock when the thing was cut by the lances. It tumbled in the air, turned around and then crashed into the ground infront of the man.

Drakken wanted to believe that he died within the flames when the car exploded and its fireball swallowed him. But he knew that these things shouldn't be underestimated and so he took Shego into his arms and carried her away. The empty shotgun stuck between his belt his pants just as the mace did.

Drakken ran away while the thing rose out of the flames. It turned around and its horrible eyes flared upon the blue man. He felt them torch within him and ran for his, and Shego's, life. He ran for some time, ran and ran. His heart pumped heavily and his arms ached. Then they reached the hospital. The entrance was relatively well lit since it lay on the "sunny" side of the building.

He walked into the house and looked around. The corridors were empty and dark, lightless, lonely and frightening. To the right was the reception which looked just the same, including the light dent/bump where the secretary's head had been slammed into the table. The entire room looked familiar except for something important:

Light.

Everything looked frightening and harmfull. It looked like as if the walls themselves would swallow him and never let him go again. He activated a small lamp on his belt which gave a dim streak of light. He quickly spun around since he felt like as if something had been there but nothing was to be seen. He looked trough a room but didn't find anything usefull. Then, finally, in a new corridor he found a small wheelchair.

He set Shego down and sat down infront of her.

"Shego?"

"Hmmm?" Was the mubmly reply.

"Look... about what I said..." He took a deep breath since he didn't know how to explain the unexplainable.

"When I met you I didn't know you'd become what you are now, Shego. Ummm... what I said is not true-"

"I know... that man..." Shego whispered since she didn't have any energy left for more.

"But that doesn't make it okay. Look... you are more important to me than you think... I need you." Shego flinched like as if in pain.

"But that's not the reason why I kept you around me all the time. Everytime I lost I could have stopped but I always thought 'What about Shego? She's got nowhere to go.'. That's why I went on all the time."

The woman looked at him. Her entire posture was bad. She looked defeated, destroyed, annihilated and emptied.

"So... I went on for you and everytime you saved me I was gratefull for that. Sometimes I even came up with shemes even though I knew they'd fail only because you were about to leave..."

Shego's eyes widened.

"You'll always be my assistant no matter what. Even if I can't be a villain anymore, even if you can't fight anymore. I... need you. I'm depending on you. I cannot exist without you anymore. I don't want you to leave since other people wouldn't tolerate your attitude towards bosses."

She cast her eyes downwards. It had been the wrong sentence.

"I mean... just... You are a part of my life and I'm responsible for you... I have to care for you and..." He took a deep breath once more. What he was about to say was on a thin line between an exclamation of love and what he wanted to express.

"I'm far too used to your company. You'll always be my assistant for as long as you want to and...ummm... I'll always do my best to keep you safe and... no matter how usefull you are, no matter if you can still help I'll still keep you with me. I'm not gonna drop you away."

Shego looked at him in a way he had not seen her do before. It was between disbelief, interest, obvious affection, hope and want.

"I don't know if I love you or something like that but... do you remember what I told you about being a villainy family?"

She nodded quickly.

"You're my family Shego, no matter what. I still need you and I'll always need you. Just not in the way someone needs a drink, a ride or a cd. I'm kinda... addictive of you." He giggled nervously since it sounded strange. After a moment he bit his lips and went on:

"I'm a junky and you're my drug, I starve and your my food... I can't live without you Shego. I just need you not to ti simply satisfy my needs but to satisfy yours, too. I just wanna say... ummm... I need you, just not... in an egoistic and onesided way. No one can live without a family."

Shego smiled broadly. It looked wonderfull on her sad face. Soft tears went down her cheeks.

"I'll never betray you, nor will I drop you or something like that... I want you to be with me cause you're Shego and... when you got hurt I realised that I never told you... just how much I worry and care about you." He nervously scratched his head. It was hard to say such things but sometimes they needed to be said.

"Thank you, Drew." Shego said and smiled. Her face smiled, her lips did so too, but her eyes remained cold. Drakken knew he had failed since her eyes still showed that status of defeat. No matter how many words he spoke it wouldn't make her whole again. Sometimes words are not enough and only actions take the necessary effect. He got out his trumpcard.

---

Shego was a little bit happy. It wasnt enough to make her whole again but then Drakken's hand moved. He put something on her lap. It was small, furry and a little bit old. It was a teddy.

"Nogo!" She looked at him and at the teddy in disbelief and surprise. "But I thought..."

"I got him wiht your diary and-"

"Thank you Drew thank you!" Shego pulled him into a hug with her healthy hand and he gently pulled her closer. It was the very first time someone hugged her and it felt wonderfull. His hands moved carefully and pulled her close. There was no space between them when Shego put her head on his chest and cried tears of joy.

Shego began to speak to Nogo the teddy but Drakken didn't mind. He knew that Shego had a rough childhood. He had have had one too. Nogo's fur took a few of the tears and soaked them up. It was exactly the same teddy as the one in the nightmare's corridor.


	52. A snowstorm begins

A phone rang and Angela took it into her hand. Connie asked herself who the doctor was called by.

"Yes? ... Could you repeat that I hear you badly?... Yes okay... The hospital? Sure."

After that Angela put the phone back to her pocket and turned the car around. Connie quickly looked away when the doctor looked into her direction to hide her curiosity from the other woman's knowledge. The houses and streets rushed by in uneventful blurs. Nothing special happened during their ride and even if it had Connie wouldn't have noticed. She was too consumed by heavy thougts.

Then the rythmic humming of the engine was missing and Connie looked around in surprise. She saw Angela standing outside the car and got out herself.

"Yeah I love you too honey, see you later." Angela said into her phone and then put it into her pocket again. "Bad connection..."

"Who was that?" Connie asked.

"I told my husband to drive to the mall and wait there."

"Oh."

Both of them walked towards an entrance. It was neither on the shadowy nor on the "lit" side of the building. They entered the first room which was the garage. It was a huge room with several ambulances and cars that stood ready for special cases. It was entirely dark and an aura of looming threat hung within the room. The shadows themselves seemed way too dark and like as if they were something more than shadows.

Or something less.

Angela got a small flashlight out of her jeanspocket and lit the way. The ghostly shape of an ambulance was at the right side while a grey wall stood at the left. They couldn't walk past the ambulance's front since the car stood too close to its openable gate. The colors, normally bright and easily seeable, seemed matt and no longer reflected the dim light as they should.

The inside of the car's cockpit was threatingly dark and shallow, shadows danced within it and the dim light shone on several items on the small wall that lay behind the driver. The shadows wandered with the angle of light and moved horribly organic with it. Angela furred her brows and moved the flashlight in quick strides. The shadows moved among the rythm just as they should.

Angela walked a few steps until she was behind the car. A few old wheelchairs, flatable beds and other things stood around and near the wall. More vehicles stood at the other side and only a small gap lay between them and the wall. The rooftops of the cars couldn't be seen since Angela was no giant and it added to the claustrophobic atmosphere. She heard soft steps and saw Connie stand behind her.

She had her arms crossed and shivered heavily what surprised Angela very much. Her breath condensated in the air unlike the doctor's one.

"Cold here..." Connie whispered through gritted teeth while looking at an ambulance right beisde her. Angela was even more surprised since she felt normally warm and her breath didn't condensate either. Something had to be wrong and her eyes followed Connie's over the ambulance's surface. A small but bloody handprint was at its lower side, like as if someone had tried to hold firm on it. Long smears led down from the print like as if someone's fingers had moved over it. It looked like as if someone had been pulled underneath the car.

In a strange form of female instinct she took Connie's hand and rushed for the door. A feeling of cold wrapped around her own body as she moved forward. It was not a normal form of cold, it seemed to come from her inner body and crawled to everywhere within her. She finally reached the door, pushed the flashlight between her teeth and opened the wooden door.

"What the-" Connie was cut short when Angela looked behind the brunette woman.

What lay behind her was a huge cloud of fog that spread towards them with high speed while faces appeared on its fronter surface. These faces were not really hard matter, they seemed in pain, forgotten, lonely and hungry. Arms stretched from the greyish fog while it came towards them like a wave of water in a dam. Hungry, clawed fingers with sharp nails at their tops. The tips seemed capable of rendering flesh from bones.

Deep and gaping mouths opened and revealed horrible rows of teeth. Angela grabbed Connie and flung her forwards through the door. She turned away from the horrible sight and shut the door just in time. She had looked at whatever it was but not for long enough to watch its eyes opened. No one had ever watched that and lived to tell the tale.

"Mrs. P what is-" Connie asked in surprise and fear when the bangs erupted on the door.

"No time just follow me!" Angela said and grabbed the young woman's hand. They walked away from the door and Angela watched its frame, as well as the walls that stretched away from it slowly became pitchblack. Something moved over the walls, moved and steadily spread over them in an undefinable speed.

Whenever she thought to see a definable stadium of "blackening" it was either completely gone or still there. It was a fluent decay in which the wall simply vanished into something black. Her eyes couldn't judge the amount of blackness since the darkness of the nigh lightless floor mixed into the absolute blackness of the blackening walls.

They ran around a corner and Angela cast another look behind her. The door had completely vanished and instead of something there was only complete blackness. There seemed to be no space, no physical boundary of the walls and the doorframe left anymore. There was only bodieless emptieness. There was no wall anymore, there was nothing at all. Her eyes no longer found anything to look upon and thus stared into nothingness.

They desperately tried to grasp that strange and defiying thing, tried to see where there was nothing to see and they tried to look into something were nothing was to look at. It was utter blackness, a void of something and nothing seemed to exist there. Not even the blackness seemed to exist since it felt like nothing but a placekeeper for whatever was there.

Or for what was no longer there like the door or the walls.

Then something radiated from that absolute emtpieness. An intense shiver went through her entire body but it refused to move away. That absolute lack of something to grasp, understand or see was somehow fascinating. Or maybe her entire mind couldn't deal with it since it was an entirely new thing. And nothing worked out on the first time.

Then something else came out of the blackness and her body got pulled back. Female hands pulled her body into a small doorframe when thin and wiry figures grew from the darkness. Reddened flares in empty faces, hollow greyish and somewhat limpid or transparent bodies. Some of the faces sped towards her when a central part of blackness formed up from the rest.

It grew into a somewhat manlike shape until two red flares lit up in what seemed to be its head. At exactly the moment they "opened" or "appeared" soemthing within was opened up like a crab's shell by a jackhammer. These reddened flares somehow torched into her mind and heart like a sun blinded someone who stood only a few miles away from it when it suddenly went "on".

Her mouth went open and shut again and again in lack of understanding for what happened. The greyish faces, their claws and their wiry bodies that loosened from their black "mother" came towards her. They struggled free from their birthplace until they could fly towards her and their gapingly hungry mouths instilled fear within her.

Then the central figure made a step forward, then another one. Its left arm went to its back while something grew out of its right. Strange and thin whispers, fearfull, horrid, filled with angst flung by her ears when the left arm returned. It held a small cylinder and moved towards the thing that had almost completely grown out from its right arm.

The feeling of cold intensified but it, together with the central shape, was only a small thing of the entire picture. One of the shapes held her eyelock, she stared into the gaping, hollow and empty black holes where its eyes should be. And as soon as she saw into these sockets it came closer, its speed increased in an impossibe way and it was, not yet, but already, both, somehow, at the same time, within her.

The things mouth opened like the one of a viper, it grew bigger than her entire head and it came towards her with horrible claws that were ready to dig into her shoulders to make sure she didn't escape. Its hollow eyes still kept her gaze in a hypnotic lock. Then suddenly a door shut, something blocked the view upon the empty black sockets. The door was almost like a barrier, what "one can't see isn't there" was somehow correct for a short moment.

Horrible claws slowly went through her like as if they only slowed the strange thing down. Her entire body shivered when a hand made a rather harsh contact with her cheek. While suddenly getting back in some state of consciousness Angela looked at Connie. The young woman had slapped her and Angela was gratefull for that. Connie took her hand and ran but suddenly stopped.

There it stood: The blackened man, the wicker man, a strange impersonation of death. Its blackened shape was somehow humanoid and its horrid red eyes stared into them. Angela felt like as if someone was, on a mental level, raping her and just that man/thing was the one to blame. It slowly strode towards them while the door made no sound even though something came through it.

Both girls twitched at the sound of its machinegun being made ready.

---

Bonnie kept freezing heavily even though her new "friend's" jacket was her extended second skirt. Her entire skin stung like as if needles stuck within it and she was hungry. Tiredness came as well when she had to struggle to keep her eyes open. It had been a long day and the adrenaline-rush that came with fights drowned out. After that her body showed her very clearly that its reserves were almost completely depleted.

It was beginning to snow and she shivered again. She wanted to know why and how she had awoken in a dirty crater while Zombie-like people and shooting things had tried to kill her. Max sometimes looked behind them and his head and eyes kept darting around together with his gun again and again.

He hadn't done so for minutes now and Bonnie got pissed. Not only from his paranoid behaviour but also from the fact that he had ignored every of her questions. Although, she admitted to herself, her tone hadn't been too friendly either. On the other hand this was the second-most scrappy day of her entire life so her behaviour wasn't that much of a surprise.

Then he rested himself against a wall and Bonnie couldn't see his front and face anymore. He leant sideways and she could see that he was more exhausted than her which was a slight surprise. His breath was heavy and he put more weight upon the left than on the right leg. His chest rose rythmically and his head went back and forth with its side at the wall. Then his rifle dropped from his right hand, stood upright for a moment and then fell into the snow.

She was about to yell at him when something odd happened. A sudden flash of white rammed through her vision and then, only for the blink of an eye, everything was afire. She couldn't make out any details but in that strange flash she saw that everything was burning except for the street, which was a brown and muddy something almost like farmer's roads that weren't looked at after heavy raining.

Then her hand landed on his shoulder. He flinched, made an exhausted grunt, picked his gun up and almost stumbled before walking forward. She looked at her hand and felt odd since she could never have covered the necessary distance in such a short amount of time. Then she was about to say something but Max simply didn't listen.

"Hey! Listen up!"

He kept breathing hard and Bonnie shook his shoulder. He groaned, fell forward upon his knees and then dropped sideways into the snow. She stood there for a moment just gaping at him and then took a breath in. He didn't get up so she shoved him to his back and looked at him. His face was pale and his breathing had slowed down considerably. She knew he wasn't gonna stand up all by himself wihout help.

"Oh dude..."

Her entire body shivered when a harsch wind blew. It flung snow and cold at her and it sounded very ghostly, almost like as if the dead tried to tell her something. She swore under her breath and put him upright with his back resting against her legs. Then she put his rifle under the armpits and used it to shove him among while walking backwards.

He was heavy and together with the backpack and the rifle he was hard to move around. She moved towards a building and got heavily exhausted after just a few strides. It was difficult and only due to her iron will she managed to pull through. "They" made it towards the entrance of the hotel were her friends were supposed to be when the snowing increased to an outright storm.

The wind blew fast, harsh and permanent and sight was reduced to a few yards at best. She barely made it towards the entrance before her sight got blinded by the stinging cold that made her eyes tear. Her entire body protested, her legs and arms muscles nearly cramped and she almost dropped him only out of wish.

But then, on the other hand, that was no option since she was the only one to bring him to safety. And no matter how much she got pissed at having to stick around with a loser she was no murderer. She pushed the door open and pulled him into the safe warmth of a greeting hall. The hotel was old and cheap at best. It had a wide floor. To the left was a small row of seats but she was to exhausted to heap him on one of them.

To her right was a set of stairs and straight ahead was a doublewinged door. To the left and a little further, near the doubledoors, a small room stood. It's window stood at an 90 degrees angle from the doubledoor so that the owner could always watch when someone came in. She sat her companion down at the wall and shut the door which was hard since the wind pushed snow into the corridor.

After that she looked at him: His head hung down and its chin rested on his chest. The rifle lay on his lap and both hands lay upon it like as if to be ready for shooting with it. She heard very faint noises of breathing and relaxed slightly.

"You'd better be thankfull this or I'll throw you out!" She hissed at him what made him groan slightly while his head rose, only to sink down again. Then she regretted having said that as well as her tone and walked towards the small room and its door. The room was a little dusty and a book lay on the table. There were only keys for the second floor which was the highest floor of the building.

After taking one of the keys she raced up the stairs and then stopped suddenly. A man stood on top of the stairs and stared at her. He wore a SWAT-uniform and a machinepistol hung on loosely below his right arm. Then there was another flash and he was gone. Bonnie shook her head quickly and walked on. After a few more exhausting steps she made it to the rooms. She stood before the door of her key.

"Shoot! Shoot!"

Bonnie turned towards where the noise came from and saw several people point guns at her. She gasped in surprise and blinked. They were gone.

"What the hell is going in this place?" She asked herself. There were memories in her head that floated around and sometimes one of them was gripped at. For a few moments she believed that something had attacked her while she drove a car earlier in the day. And then she put the thought to rest since it seemed to absurd to be true.

"Strange things whose guts make me green all over?... No way..." She mused to herself and then another voice spoke from inside the room.

"You're alive... still." It said while the pause showed that it was displeased at least. She looked up and saw, while her head ached slightly, a man resting against the kitchen's table. He wore a white sleeveless shirt and two brownish stripes of leather went over his chest and into his trousers. They would, on the back, mend into one and hold the trousers. A holster held a small pistol and a police officers badge stuck on the belt.

"What? Hwo are you?" She said, both surprised and startled. The man went on like as if she hadn't said anything:

"I didn't expect you to come back." He said while narrowing his eyes. And before she could reply he vanished when she blinked her eyes.

"What on earth is going on in this place?" She took two blankets from the sleeping room and went downstairs. She contemplated what had happened and came to the clue that her head kept aching heavily what made her rub it with a free hand. When she came down he sat where she had dropped him but his hands had wrapped around the rifle. It's bloodtipped knife still protruded from its top and Bonnie shook her head.

She dropped the blanket and tried to take the rifle from him. He groaned in an almost frightened way and pulled it closer like a kid its teddy.

"You're a stupid little freak you know that?" She yelled at him in frustration. Both her exhaustion and his stupidity made her angry.

Then again she felt a little sting after having said the words and smirked slightly. After that she simply ripped the gun away what made him fall aside. She wrapped the blanket around and looked into his face. It was pale and somewhat lifeless but she saw that his lips quietly moved around. Her face changed from anger to worry.

"Hey... you okay?" She asked in a way that would have surprised everyone who knew the foodchain. She was to drop him off, ignore him or make some jokes on his expence. But then, on the other hand, there was no one around and he was close to dying from the cold. She decid to strap the rifle on her back and then picked him up.

"I wonder what Mr. Barkin would think if he saw me like this..." She laughed lightly and started pulling him among the room and over the stairs. The entire place had an aura of lonelieness, like as if no one had ever lived here. The strange thing about max was that he always made some kind of reaction when she groaned or did something else than rythmically pulling him up the stairs. It was an almost impossible task.

But even though her hardships she was able to move him through the door of their new appartment. This time the man didn't appear which was a peark as well. Bonnie collapsed into a soft chair and different emotions came up within her: There was exhaustion, happieness for having achieved her goal, anger at Max for having caused such problems for her and something else.

She was worried about him and his health. And even though she wouldn't like to admit it: She was frightened that he might not awake again because she could have been too slow.


	53. Mindfights and the armor

Sorry for the long delay, I had pretty much trouble with my job and applications for a new one. Review, please! You can review to older chapters too! I only have four reviews at all and it's way too less. Here is a list of those who already reviewed:

creaticetoo,

Beik,

Savior M. Ascend

and Kabrisif.

Thank you, your reviews keep this story going. No offense meant, but there's more of those necessary to do that.

---

Ronald walked forward with his redheaded girlfriend. Both of them slowly moved through a corridor and kept their eyes pealed. He knew that they were looking for people within this building. They either found said people or answers for their questions. Maybe they would find both? Roland did not know the answer. And without really paying much attention to it he took the mashinepistol from his back.

He carefully aimed over bead and notch while slowly stepping forward what made Kim look at him in a disaproving way. She took a small flashlight and switched it on. The thin streak of light it created seemed to pierce the darkness just barely. It seemed like as if light was not something that was wanted around here. And the strange feeling of subtle dread and cold in his eyery bone made him feel like as if they weren't welcome either.

Kim kept walking forward when he started feeling something odd. It was different from what he had felt before and it was there at the same time.

"Kp? I think I know where those people are!" He quietly spoke into her ear.

"Where?" She asked.

"Somewhere upstairs... I don't know where exactly it is though."

"Then let's have a look there."

He didn't know why exactly he had said that. It was the same feeling like the one had have had when talking about that "Rufus" thing. He had used it to explain his strange dream to her without really knowing what a "Rufus" was supposed to be. He scratched his head with the left hand while his right kept gripping the gun in his hands. The gun was something else that was confused about.

He could aim rather well while slowly walking and it didn't seem too heavy at all. The way he held it seemed so familiar but still so new. Then he gently shook his head and let those thoughts, together with the ones of that strange Rufus-thing, rest. They walked up a set of stairs since the elevators seemed out of action. After that they were on one of the upper floors.

Chalkmarks in human's shapes lay on the floor but Ron didn't know why. Kim looked at it with the same sort of surprise.

"I didn't know the cops have been here-" She began a sentence-

"-and I haven't heard of anything strange coming up here either." -and Ron finished it.

He followed some kind of subtle urge when he led the way to a door. On its opposite side was a small door with the label "Laundry" hanging above it. He looked at Kim who was already going into the patients room and decid to look at the Laundryroom himself. A strange feeling of expactation came over him when he wrapped his fingers around the doorknob.

His body shivered slightly when he opened the door with a subtle creek. A rather huge basket stood there together with some others. One basket had been toppled over and several of its clothes were spread all over the place. His eyes widened when he saw that some of them had been ripped apart. Five long streeks were cut out of a wall and it seemed like the claws of some huge animal had ripped through it.

The entire room looked like as if someone or something had have had a big brawl in the room.

Then his body walked over to the single basket. His breathing increased and an intense feeling of something dreadfull came over his body. But he could not stop since his body moved towards the basket in an almost trancelike state. But even without that strange and increasing thing, which seemed similar to when he had shot the weird people with the gun, his curiosity would have made him look.

His hand trembled slightly when it gripped the baskets rim ever so gently. His fingers felt so many sensations when he moved a small coat away from the basket and something was revieled. His body shivered in a strange feeling of anticipation and fear while his eyes indulged it like a drugaddict's ones. It had been waiting there, hoping, wishing, lurking and looking for him, only, and very, him. Only him.

---

Od and Danny carried the still unconscious Chrystal on her improvised stretcher. She gently yanked back and forth but she never seemed to slip away from it. And, strangely, Liz felt like as if it was even better than a normal stretcher for her. She didn't know much about stretchers and medicine but she knew that carrying her around on that thing was very tiering.

But Liz was more than willing to trade pre-cramped arms for every second that brought her friend towards a doctor faster. Then Od slipped on a stair and almost fell. She watched how Chrystal slipped downwards, how her body together with the gun that held her tipped sideways and how she almost fell. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw that the girl would fall upon the stinger that still stuck in her belly.

She jumped forward, slipped and her head hammered down on the hard marble stairs but she was able to help. Her arms kept the thing from tipping, from falling down and her friends life from ending. She lay there like a parody of a gym's weightlifter and kept the thing up. Her arms could barely keep the thing, which weighed almost 28 pounds(lb) and the body which was about 103 pounds heavy, in the air.

She grit her teeth, her arms felt like cramping and like being smashed, her muscles ached under the immense pressure but still she prevailed until Od got a grip on the gun again. She let her arms fall and realised one thing: The belts of ammo that had held her friends legs at the gun should normally have ripped. And she remembered the strange sizzling feeling that had made her able to keep the gun in the air.

It had come from the metallic thing and it had went through her arms. It remained for a few moments and then slowly vanished. Her eyes were shut while she kept panting heavily. It had been like a subtle wave of energy that had reassured her arms to hold firm. Then the ammobelts came to her mind again. They had held firm and not even one bit had given in.

To her the entire belt seemed to have outright pulled her arms close. But that didn't seem important when they walked into the OP-room. Her eyes moved over the weapon's surface again and again. She analysed its stature several times and came to one conclusion: It was perfect, plain and simple perfect. She wanted to feel that strange and slightly electrical twitch, move her fingers over the intricate metal and touch it once more.

---

A building had been everything they had thought it to be but it had become so much more. Until that part of time they hadn't met the crawlers, arachs, Dark or bio-artilleries. Until then reports of the socalled "undead" had come in scarcely. And, in some kind of instinctial forseight of the future, the police Chief had decid to pack armed civilians into milita service and among police units.

Supporting the cops and helping them with evacuating civilians, that was what Max had been told to do. But no one had told him that shooting at Zombie-esque people and running for his dear life would be his true task. So far everything had been rather simple. Sure, two of the cops had died due to the near-immunity of damage the living dead posessed. But one such enemy alone was not too much to handle.

No one had seen the number, the sign, the insignia on top of the door's frame. _19_

Max ran out of a small room and into a corridor while slamming the door shut. Behind him strange rustling sounds came but he didn't turn around to look. James had started screaming through the entire building without pause and everyone tried to run out of the house. Max followed a policewoman towards the stairs. They had to get to the ground floor to leave.

The woman jumped over the fencelike frame on the other side of the stairs' beginning. She wanted to take the stairs quickly. Then something caught her in midair, something sharp and thin went through her belly and small needles extended from the sharp object. The woman was stopped in midair, screamed and then the strange thing rushed down with a jolt. Her screaming got even louder.

He ran back into the corridor and away from the stairs. He cast the stairs a short look and saw strangely biological and fleshy growth coming up the staircase's walls. It literally grew or climbed up the wall and something horrid was to be seen inside. He saw how the poor woman's flesh was torn from her body and how the small teeth and pinnacles that tore it away moved, in waves, into the wall.

The strange growth feasted on her, used her to grow, and it pushed her closer towards the moving wall of flesh. It looked like as if she slowly sank into bloodred, fleshy, teethy and hungry water. Her eyes were ripped open and she looked at Max. She stretched an arm out for him. Then two thinner sharp tentaclish things pierced her eyes, extended needles, pulled the outripped eyeballs into the wall and she screamed even louder.

He didn't know what to do and, even though his guts told him it was wrong, ran towards the outstretched arm. She got pulled into the devouring wall even faster and when Max grabbed the hand and pulled at her only the lower arm and hand extended from the thing. Her arm was pulled into the wall by teeth that pierced the skin.

The thin bioblade that had pierced her belly before came out of the wall again and aimed at his head. He pulled faster and, with a sickening sound, the teeth let go of her body. He fell back, the tentacle came down, and pierced, instead of him, her. He fell on his buttocks and saw that there was nothing but a hand with a small and nagged off lower arm in his hands. The blade lay in the lower arm, just below where his hands were.

The arm hadn't been ripped off the body, instead there had been nothing but the arm anymore. Nothing else was left.

A sudden thought let him let go of the hand and sickeningly thin but sharp needles extended from the tentaclish blade. They went through the hand and arm, but not through his. Then the thing pulled the arm back into the wall, instead of him, and Max ran once more.

He only later realised how fucking lucky he had been to not get hit by the strange tentacle.

A window was there, doors shattered and thin bioblades upon their very agile tentacles extended from the doorframes when he ran for it. From somewhere outside a voice yelled: "Run fer it!" With a dialect that made the "o" become an "e". It was the saying Max would (or alread had?) remember(ed?) when Kim and the cops went after him.

Bullets shot the glass away and some of the growth already came from the outer walls and, through the window, into the building. But something was different... there was someone else who was about to jump through the window. Max remembered, somehow, that it had been him, and that the cop that was now in front of him had been the last one to jump out. A blackened man came out of a door and suddenly everything made sense.

The strange growth left it alone like as if it was not there, or not eadible, but moved around it like as if it was an obstacle. Everything made sense, in a strange way. It all felt like a deja vu and now the reason for it was clear. The cop jumped through the window, the growth increased until there was only a small hole left and Max jumped through.

He made a strangely easy salto in the air and landed on the ground. Everyone was looking at him in an odd way. The cop was there, panting and kneeling in the same way he had been. Then Max wondered why he was not on eyehight with the standing cops but with one who sat. He looked down, just as the cop before him had looked down, and screamed.

He sat there with his entire lower torso missing. Everything, from just above the pelvis, was missing. He was standing/sitting upright in a big circle of reddened snow, and its crimson grew deeper. He screamed again, shortly, with curt pauses for getting breath inbetween, loudly and in a strangely repititive pattern. It was nothing but a simple "Ahhhhhhh" all the time, again and again.

His lifeblood was dying the snow red, just as he was. He looked at the assembled croud of people, no one was capable of doing something different then stare in shock and no one could act in any way. He felt nothing, not even the phantom pain people were supposed to feel when a bodypart was missing. After at least ten of these screams, just like he had, the cop stood up and, exactly in the same way, yelled with growing desperation:

"Stop screaming! Stop screaming!"

He didn't stop of course, the cop hadn't stopped either "back then". But what was back then? He looked up to see the young man hold a pistol at his dying head, exactly in the same way he had and with the same horrored face. But before he pulled the trigger, just like Max had done, it the bloodied halfcorpe spotted the blackened men standing among the small crowd of shocked people. It was their fault.

Their fault all along. It was their fault that the roles were changed, that the past was changed within a small pocket of time.

---

Betty heard steps nearby and walked around the corner with the colt pistol in her hands. She felt betrayed by Albert and her mind was reigned by rage. Then she got around the corner and spotted the man she was looking for. He was barely walking like a person that was under drugs, alcohol or both. He shambled and bumped into the walls repeatedly. He looked like someone who had no control over his own body.

"Albert! Stand still you son of a bitch!" Betty yelled and no effort of staying serious could ensnare her anger.

The man turned around and slumped upon the ground. She got a little bit closer but kept her pistol aimed at him. She was sick of his tricks and no matter what he said would change her mood. Betty was not sure about him: Had she been nothing but a little in-between for him? Or had he tried to sneak up his trust? The idea of him being a spy seemed very much closer at that moment.

She didn't know why he had tried to murder her nor why he hadn't shot her. He could also simply have sliced her throat after their "meeting". In fact he could have killed her in the school already. Maybe he was in league with whatever killed half of her team? Whenever she tried to remember what had happened there her mind got foggy.

It was almost like as if she didn't want or could not remember.

She cleared her mind and put the pistol at his head. "Gimme one reason to not kill you right now!"

The man looked up and blurred something out: "Sdrassi Kathim lillopostna-ip-taranga! Morst?"

She blinked several times. Whatever he had said didn't make much sense. None of the words made any sense alone and the entire context was abhorrently weird. There seemed to be no grammar within the saying and Betty knew plenty of languages. She knew even a few things about very old languages like medieval english, french and german, old chinese and two words of a nigh ancient swedish language.

But still nothing made any sense. Nothing seemed familiar or known. She had a knack for seeing sense in sayings even before she knew what the saying meant. But still nothing of it made sense. She wasn't even sure if his words had been nonsense or a language.

"Don't you dare to give me that shit! You tried to kill me and nothing keeps me from shooting you outright!" Anger became stronger and her triggerfinger started twitching. Something inside her something yelled at her consciousness to leave and take him with her but it was just a small noise among shouting. Anger and hatred grew unhindered.

"Isti morst-ammentiromka?" He said slowly while looking at something behind her. She threw a quick glance but saw nothing. Maybe, if she hadn't been so angry and full of haste she would have noticed the strange feeling of cold that came from there. She looked back too quickly to notice whatever he had been looking at. Their eyes met. Or at least hers and what she hoped to be his.

There was a strangely shifting color within his left eye, one that seemed to be a weird purple of sorts that consisted of dozens of colors that mixed into that color. She took a step back at the strange sight and for a moment she believed him to not be a spy. For a moment she thought him to have suffered from something but the thought was quickly subsided by anger and hatred.

She began to literally hate him for having seduced her, she hated herself for having fallen for a such betrayer and cursed at her stupidity. Her hand raised the pistol again and nothing but willpower kept her from taking a life out of hatred. Her left eyelid began twitching just like it always did when she was about to lose control of herself. Very few people knew that she could actually lose control over something.

The strange color was almost like a picture made out of many pictures. For example a huge face could consist of many very small faces. A huge amount of rings could create, through the darker shades of their color, a picture of Mona Lisa. One could either see the big picture or the small ones but one could never grasp both at the same time.

He slowly got up and walked towards an elevator at the end of the corridor. She ran after him and saw, out of the edge of her eyes, how the entire floor behind her began to darken. Lightbulbs popped, doors seemingly vanished within a growing wall of blackness and the entire corridor seemd to seize existing at all. But only the small thing in her head protested while her anger fueled her forward.

Hatred grew even stronger within her.

---

Dankow sat quietly on top of the pickups back. Then it happened. The strange feeling in his guts grew even more intense but it was too late. They were there and simply stood there, waiting for them to come closer. Their car had come through a small sidestreet and on both sides of the bigger street stood their enemy as one, yet still divided. Strange things climbed into the small sidestreet from buildings that stood nearby and blocked their escape.

They were trapped, ambushed, alone. He had underestimated their intellect, had mistaken them for dumb thugs. He gulped hard.

---

Kim walked towards the bed and saw a small sheet of paper lying on the floor. Wade had told her that this room had been visited by "a strange and violent man in black armour" and it was her hottest track. She looked around the room and spotted a small note on a table beside the bed. She took it.

_"__Leave the city. Trust no one." _"Hmm... no fugitive, no hospital personal to talk to and no usefull information. Great."

She walked into the bathroom but found nothing. After that she looked at the drawers. The first one was empty, the second one held nothing either. Then she opened the third and last one and scowled at the sight. There was a gun leaning in it and several smaller things that were ceartainly called "clips". Even though Kim really didn't know what those smaller things were good for.

She knew nothing about firearms except for that they murdered people. And that was all she needed to know. There was another note:

_"Janice, I don't know where to put this thing so please let it stay here for first_. _Mike says its an "M4" with a grenadelauncher among. I'll hand it over to the cops as soon as the whole mess around here's cleaned. But who knows, maybe it'll come in handy?_

_Dave" _

"Pfhhh! Come in handy, pah!" She dropped the note back to the weapon without touching it by letting it fall out of her hand. Then she slammed the door shut and stomped out of the room with her mood entirely ruined for a short time.

"Surely Ron can light my mood up again. Where is he anyway? Maybe he's still- " Then she suddenly fell into a combatstance upon seeing something standing in the floor. It was not much bigger than her but still intimidating. It's features were sharp and grim and its entire poisture spoke of agressive behaviour. Then it looked at her and raised its two arms until they stand loosely stretched away from the body.

It was a figure in blackened armor, complete with a gasmask and helmet.

"Intimidated, huh?" It asked her in a slightly deep and heavy male voice. It stood there so nonchalant and sleezy but yet so calm and self-secure. It carried itself a little bit like a careless teenager but also like a trained fighter. She knew that a person with good training and healthy self-esteem could be a very big enemy. Both the careless attitude and the trained bodylanguage spoke of a very high self-esteem but not ego.

There were two sorts of people who had such an assurance in themselves. People who were idiots and people who were very good at what they were doing. Shego was in the latter category and this... thing didn't seem to be in the first either. Then it lowered its arms and spoke again:

"Look what I found!" It said. It's sleezieness and movement were a strange mixture. It seemed even more dangerous since its ability to jump at her like a killer, almost like Shego in a stronger, faster, heavily armored and male form. The thought itself made her hairs stand up. And the way it had spoken: She couldn't make out if it was a threat or something harmless... and only very few people could give her that feeling of dread.

Shego was one of them.

Then the figure moved its leg up and the arms towards the other direction in a strange way. It looked almost like a ballerina or something like that.

"Whoa! Look I found KP? Ain't this awesome?" The figure spoke and then looked itself all over. It was the armor that stung something in her head, triggered something and almost released a memory within her. A school, flames and a lonely corridor came to her mind. Then overthrown tables and running figures came to her memories. And then, in an instant, they were gone again, banished by something she could not comprehend.

"Ron?"

---

Bonnie suddenly shuddered and the kitchen knife she had kept holding fell out of her hands. She ran into the living room to find the source of the noise and, to her horror, there was no living-room. Instead there was a small plain of snow, with a building's wall and people. There was a person standing infront of someone who was strangely small.

"What the hell-" Before she could finish the sentence the man turned around and looked at her with a horrored face. Then it all vanished. She didn't know that she had, barely, saved a life.

The living room was back, and the entire scene had vanished just like the man, the screams, gunfire and the swat-men had done before. She still didn't know what these things meant but it was nothing good. Max sat there, upright like a candle, screaming all the time again and again. Bonnie was confused about what to do so she just sat down behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

But he didn't stop screaming for almost half a minute. She wasn't annoyed or disturbed by it, she was simply put into terror and fright.


	54. Hospitals and appartements

I'm sorry for the large delay. I had a lot of work on my mind and several important exams came up (and are still coming). Anyways, thanks for the reviews that I have received yet. Please feel free to comment on older chapters as well since I need more feedback.

I also found out that I still suck at English grammar even though I've got an A in English... weird. So please be gentle with grammar mistakes since I have no one to correct my chaps at home. Anyways, I really hope that my stroy is enjoyable enough for you. The Disclaimer's in the first chap.

---

Two persons ran through a corridor and darkness seemed to follow them. Angela took the lead since she knew the hospital well and Connie threw benders and alike over to hinder their persuers. Angela climbed a set of stairs while Connie blocked the door that lead to the staircase with another bender. After that she ran up after the doctor.

"Where are we heading?" She asked the running doctor.

"The security rooms. There should be something to fight these things with." She answered.

The door below them creaked dangerously and the sound of syringes being shattered came when they left another door behind them. The bender had been filled with syringes. Then something came from behind their "new" door. It sounded like whipsers, too many to make out something specific but enough to be heard. The voices seemed full of grief of anger but also with pain and despair.

To Connie it seemed like as if she and Angela were both the enemies and salvation of what lay behind the door. They sounded like in torment and it made Connie pity whatever was there. Where there humans? She did not know and the wish to simply run away became overmighty. They were in a rather long corridor that stretched towards two sides:

They could either go southwards to a t-crossing or to the north and into a room with huge doors. The door behind them started cracking loudly and Connie saw clawlike things run through the lumber. They moved through the wood with ease and both of the women jumped in freight.

The entire place was somewhat ghostly: The lights were turned off and everything was dark. There were pitchblack places strewn all over the place that seemed more intense in their blackness and she wasn't able to see even outlines from the things that should be there.

She could swear that something was watching them, something within the shadows of the place. Angela put her flashlight towards one of the corridors and it barely illuminated the way. To her unhappy surprise she saw that it was the corridor of earlier, a corridor that seemed familiar. Benders and beds were thrown around like a hastily made barricade.

There was a white chalkmark on one of the walls. Connie didn't know why but it seemed familiar.

She couldn't exactly remember what had happened, she knew that agressive hospital staff had attacked them but she had no memories about this corridor in particular. It seemed so foggy in her mind. Then Angela lit the other side, the one with the t-crossing. The small light, which looked like a yellow-whitish ball on the wall, shone upon something.

It was... something. It seemed somewhat human but consisted of a somewhat moving blackness. It stepped into the corridor from one of the sides and showed them its flank. The light did not illuminate the thing, instead it lit the wall behind it but not itself. It seemed like as if it would swallow the light, destroy or bend it to its will. It seemed unlightable and like a walking shadow.

It turned towards them.

Reddish hellfires flared at them from where its eyes should be. Their bloodred seemed, by the eye, unchanged, but Connie felt like as if something had shifted within, or behind, these reddish lights. They were not even normal lights, they didn't illuminate their surroundings, instead they seemed to be simply there only to be seen. It started to walk towards them with silent, porpusefull and unchanging strides.

Connie swallowed hard and moved closer to the doctor.

They looked at the other way they could take. Its doors were shut and they were far away. Connie had a sense of femal intuition which told her they wouldn't make it there in time. She looked once more towards the blackish man to see that it was completely gone, it was plain and simple no longer there.

After a short moment of thought Angela took the young ladies hand and ran towards a door which was not as far away as the double-doors but still not close. Then she suddenly stopped in her tracks and Connie bumped into her.

"No!" The doctor quietly said.

To Connie's surprise the blackish man was there, how it had come so close she could not tell. They had looked away for only a small moment. It kept staring at both of them and Connie started to feel the slowly and nagging feeling within her grow into a real and physical ache. It literally hurt, her knees began shivering and her grip on the doctors shoulder began to harden in fear.

None of them knew how it could have got there in such a short amount of time. The door creaked once more and howling sound came from behind her. Then Angela suddenly jumped forward, the thing raised its menacing weapon and fired, the doctor jumped aside and yellowish lances flew past here. She had only pretended to jump forward but instead went to the right _and_ forward.

Both of the girls felt things vanish from them: Memories, feelings, thoughts. It seemed like as if the man/thing infront of them sucked it up slowly. No, instead it seemed like as if it all would be drawn towards the thing without it really doing anything for thatShe slashed the flashlight at the things head but it went through effortlessly. It made her stumble and rendered her unable to evade the things weapon.

The Rockwaller girl even forgot her own name. What was it again?

Connie put her arm down on its weapon, said object went aside for just barely enough distance to miss Angela's body. Lances flew aside, a horrible and apocalyptic sound came when it fired. Its muzzle fire lit the entire corridor in very quickly following intervals. It made the whole thing look like _laterna magica _or like a movie with too few pictures per second.

Angela regained her footing, ran to the door, opened it and slashed at the things weapon once more. Attacking it was useless so the only thing she could do was keeping it from firing. Connie quickly ran through the door and a loud cracking noise came. The other door broke apart. Several people or things came through:

One thing looked rather humanoid but before Angela could get a closer look it simply vanished. Its whitish eyes still shone a the spot where it had vanished in or at. The second thing was a former doctor who had a scalpell in both hands. The bloodred dot in his eyes marked him to be on "their" side. The third thing looked rather weird: It was grey and scelletal, a small blue flame came out of one of its arms and it moved through the doorway by climbing through it and walking on the ceiling like as if it was the ground.

Two more of the redeyed people came and the black man turned towards them after gazing at, or into, her once more. She had the bitter thought of simply being left for later. Then she moved through the door but a strange whoosh of air follwed her before the door shut. She lit towards Connie to see if she was alright and something weird happened:

Connie moved her arm to shield her eyes and maybe just that saved her. The strange humanoid appeared infront of her, seemingly out of thin air, and moved its head toward her. Before one of the two girls could react the things head somehow connected with Connie's upper arm. She screamed in pain and a disgusting sound came. It reminded Angela of some animal sucking at something.

The light revieled a strange humanoid: It was completely naked and had a rather tough looking matt-brownish skin. Its arms held Connie firmly around the shoulders and its... Angela gasped. Her flashlight connected with the things head and revieled what her eyes refused to believe:

Four tentaclish things extended from where a human's lower jaw should be and let go of her upper arm. Reddish lines showed where its tentacles lost contact with her arm and a surprisingly strong flow of blood came from small dots in the middle of the red lines. Connie pulled her arm back and covered the injured spots.

The thing stumbled back for just a moment and Angela raised her flashlight again. But the thing ssimply disappeared. She blinked in surprise and didn't notice its white eyes still shining in the air around her. Howling sounds came and then, suddenly, a blow hit her right in the groin. She fell to the ground and the thing was there once more. This time its disgusting tentacles didn't bump off an upper arm.

---

Tara opened a door for the others and peeked through it: There was no one and nothing there but the still working lights.

"Weird. Why did the people turn off the upper levels lights?" Hanna asked. Helen, the cop, mourned slightly but still walked on.

They moved through a corridor and came past the reception. Interestingly the dent which Max had made with the reception ladie's head was still there. She sighed. If only he would be here... He'd know what to do or say. And she wouldn't have to be the unofficial leader of their small group. Liz seemed concerned for Chrystal since she kept looking at her and the weapon that she was carried with.

Helen seemed to have a big headache since she mourned quietly while putting her weapon at doors and new corridors. Od and Danny were busy with carrying their unconscious Chrystal. And Hanna seemed to be searching for things since her eyes darted around everywhere. And she somewhat showed the way while all the others simply followed. It seemed to the best thing for her to do.

She didn't find any other task for herself anyway.

They found a bender and the two men took positions on its front and end. Then they slowly dropped her on but one question arose: Who would untangle her? None of them had any knowledge on that weird construct.

"So... how do we get her off that thing?" Hanna asked while pointing a finger at the weapon in a way that showed her disapproval.

"Hey its not a "thing"!" Liz said and started moving her fingers around it. And, surprisingly, she seemed to know what she was doing.

"Tara, you take her upper legs okay? Hanna you keep gripping her head!" Tara nodded and Liz started untieing the belt. It was somehow intertwined with the weapons grip and her legs. It basically looked like two eights with the grip and her legs inbetween and there were "stabilisers" of some sort and then there were... well in the blond girl's oppinion it was horribly complicated.

She was a very smart girl and proved blonde-jokes to be wrong but that whole thing was just... weird.

"What the hell are you doing?" Hanna asked with a lot of bewilderment in her voice.

"Well... I just got do this... and now that... and now..." Liz kept untieing the belt and, with a sudden rush, Tara's arms had to carry the legs weight. Hanna started looking at it but simply couldn't understand the whole system behind it. Tara raised an eyebrow when she saw how Liz put the loosened ammo-belts neatly beside each other.

Then Liz untied Chrystals head and the men moved the weapon away from her. They had kept the girl staticly straight so no one had to worry about her belly getting more damage.

"Ta da! All done!" Liz said cheerily.

"Well that took long enough..." Hanna said in an annoyed tone and Tara could feel her arms aching. It was weird, she had looked at the girls eyes and it had simply appeared within her head that they ached.

Helen raised her hand to say something but then touched her head and mourned somewhat painfully. Again Tara looked at her eyes and almost felt a physical ache in her own shoulder and head. Danny put an arm on her shoulder and asked her if everything was alright. Hanna grumbled in an annoyed way, scoffed slightly and crossed her arms.

The strange thing was: When Tara looked at the respective person's eyes she could somehow feel what they felt, or at least know what they felt. When she looked at Danny's eyes she saw much deeper concern than she had expected. A look at Hanna's eyes showed that she wasn't just annoyed by the timal delay but also jealous. Although, one could see _that_ without these looks too. Liz's snicker proved that.

Tara smiled as well until a thought hit her: Hanna still had someone to be jealous over. It made her smile vanish even faster than it had come.

"So what about that gun there? I've got one 'n the two cops too! 'n I don't think one of you can handle that monster!" Od said. Tara noticed that the word "monster" somehow had a weird double meaning in this context even though she didn't know the second one.

"I can!" Liz said and tried to lift the huge thing. "Hggggggnnnnnn..." She failed to lift the whole thing and made an intersting noise. Everyone laughed, even Helen seemed to forget her tremendous headache for a moment.

"HOAAAAARRR!" And then Liz hieved the behemoth weapon up with a roar that could have come from a 150 pounds heavy weightlifter.

"See? It ain't hard!" She said and put the thing upon her right shoulder with the muzzle and its bipod over over her back. She held its grip with her right hand and simply dropped the left arm since it wasn't necessary. Everyone fell dead silent.

"Now that was arkward..." Od commented with no ammount of offense in his voice. Irritation came with it.

"And what can this thing do for us?" Hanna asked.

Liz raised a finger to explain when something else did that for her.

"Tfrruuuuuuu..." A hammering noise like ripping fabric came through the building. It was like a huge thunderclap and everyone but Liz shivered in freight and surprise. Then came another one of these hammerings. After that a loud shreek came, a group of people started yelling loudly and then came very disgusting sounds that weren't evercovered by the weapon's shooting.

"That!" Liz said with none of her cheery mood gone. They started walking towards a doublewinged door when Tara noticed the weight of her backpack. It had been his backpack... Her mood sunk once again. Liz seemed to lead the group at the moment and Tara shook her shoulders since they ached a little bit because of the backpacks weight. He never had problems with its weight.

She looked up and saw Liz walking with that big thing on her shoulder. The picture didn't seem right. At first she thought it to be the weapon. No teenager should have such a thing with them and walk around with it like it was everyday business. But then she realised what really was wrong about the picture: It was her.

He should stand there with the thing on his shoulder. But she would surely never see that picture again. Tara sighed and looked to the ground. Then something warm landed on her shoulder and she looked up. It was Helen's hand.

"Don't worry about that firing though, your safe with me and Danny." The coplady said.

"Oh... it's not that..." She replied a little unsure since she didn't know what to say.

"Feeling bad about something?" The woman inquired a little bit with a surprisingly timid and nice voice. Her hand seemed to radiate tender warmth into her.

"No no... I'm just a little bit... I don't know."

"Well... I'm always there if you wanna talk you know? Your friends will listen too. And there's still Danny and Od if that doesn't work." The last sentence was said with a mild but nicely meant sarcasm and Tara had to smile a little bit about it.

"You got a lot of weight to carry. I could take some of oyur shoulders if you want." The woman said once more.

"No thanks, it'd only make your injury become worse." Tara pretended to not have understood the woman's offer in the way it was meant.

Helen couldn't lift that weight off her. Only he could. And Helen couldn't bring back the dead, right?

---

Bonnie wasn't in a good mood. She shook Max a little bit and she was, actually, freightened. Screaming around madly wasn't normal. Maybe he had have had a nightmare? She wanted to ask him what the hell he was thinking but instead of saying anything he simply sat there. He sat there with his head in the hands and stared at the table with his upper body moving back and forth slightly, slowly and rythmicly.

She knew well enough to not ask him at that moment and waited for some time. When he cleared his throat and breathed hard she cleared her throat. But then he simply got up without paying her attention and went, very shakily and almost like a drunk man, to the bathroom. He walked rather slow and she could have caught up with him. Instead she just blinked at the arkwardness of his behaviour.

"Okay... I've had it!" She growled angriely and went to the closed door of the bathroom. She cleared her throat, took a deep breath in and prepared to give him one hell of a lecture. Then she rammed the door open and was about to scream at him. She gulped and her finger slowly went down. Her face showed compassion and worry when she saw what he was doing.

He was throwing up. And horribly at that. She had thrown up very bad once in her life and what he did sounded even worse. It sounded like as if he was puking everything out of his body that was either fluid or not strapped hard to the bones. She slowly walked closer. He leaned over the toiled No, scratch that. He looked like as if the toilet was the only thing that kept him from collapsing to the ground.

She queitly shut the door and walked towards him. As soon as she made a step he suddenly turned around with a long pistol in his hands. Bonnie grew pale at the sight. There were small traces of blood in the toilet and he looked exhausted to the brink of collapse. The gun shaked back and forth and as soon as he shut the left eye she was sure that he was holding a 50 lbs weight instead of that pistol.

"Ummm... don't shoot?" She slowly replied after taking a step back. He looked frightened like as if she was about to kill him.

She went a step forward but he groaned weakly and just barely raised the weapon to the middle of her body. Now it 75 lbs. The weapon shaked left and right even more but she didn't want to take any risks. And in fact he looked as freightened as if she was some kind of monster trying to kill him. Then suddenly he had to turn around again to throw up even more violently.

"Okay... I'll just make some dinner okay?" She slowly stepped back while making some soothing gestures wiht her hands. Bonnie was rather freightened and, as soon as the shut door lay between him and her she sighed. She started to look through the drawers to busy herself with the only thing that could always calm her down: Clothes.

Bonnie was rather confused about what had happened. She had put on some new clothes. Normal. She was making some food. Normal. Weird flashy pictures and her companion screaming like a madman wasn't normal. She stood infront of the fridge and took some things to make dinner with. She turned on the radio and, to her surprise, her favourite song reached her ears.


	55. Seeing things clearly

Thank you for another review. It's twelve by now. Remember what I said about important Exam's coming up? I wish I had more time to spend on writing this story. Thank you for reading and for your patience. Reviews are, as always, highly appreciated.

Anyways, let us go on:

---

Nothing was the way it should be. Connie knew that since the weird thing above Angela moved towards her head rather easily. The doctor's arms seemed to do very little against the things strength. Behind Connie was a small desk and her eyes moved over it in an attempt to find something she could use as a weapon.

The thing kept howling in a low noise, it sounded like an old man taking breath in a very throaty way. Except for that it was no old man but something menacing that intended to kill them.

The thing was horrible. It's thin tentacles kept wirring around in front of its jaw which came closer in rapid speed. Angela kept pushing against it but that could only keep the thing away for so long. Connie's eyes hadn't adjusted to what little light was in the room until her hand held firm on something solid.

Her fingers wrapped around whatever it was and she ran towards the thing. Her arm moved in a small jolt and an unfolding sheek-noise came. Then she realised what the thing was: An unfoldable baton. She ran towards the thing, raised her arm early and thrust the baton down with all her might. The only effect was that the things head jolted a little closer to Angela's head and one of the thing's tentacles found her throat.

It sucked hard on a part of Angela's lower throat at a place near the shoulder's connection to the throat. Angela yelled out in pain and surprise and her arms lost all power. The things head came closer and soon covered view on Angela's head. Her arms tried to keep it away from herself but soon seized moving slowly.

"No! No! Get off her you freak!" Connie screamed in frustration, fear and anger.

But the thing did not comply. No matter how often she hit its back, which was wiry but surprisingly muscular and hard, it didn't stop the creature. A terrible sound like sucking came and the only other noise were the clashes of her baton. The thing kept on with something Connie couldn't see but she knew it was something wrong. She slowly backed off the thing and tried to open the drawers.

There had to be a gun somewhere. There just had to be one! But no matter how much she tried to open the drawers: They were locked. She hammered the baton upon them but nothing helped. She rested her head against it and began to cry. The baton hadn't worked, instead it made everythign worse. No... she had made everything worse. The thought was unbearable. First her mom, then Lonnie and now Angela.

The woman had cared for her and now this was what she got for it. It was what Connie had given her for being nice. Connie believed this to be her fault. Lonnie had always been a good sister and her mom, even though she had rarely been at home, had always been a mom. And now this.

"No! Please stop!" She mumbled while tears ran down her cheeks. But the thing kept on with whatever it was doing. Connie got desperate and, even though it seemed horribly futile, brought the baton down once more. This time the thing reacted by moving one of its arms and its body.

Its eyes where were so horribly hollow and empty, white and wihtout any emotion but hunger. Its tentacles spread out upon seing her and the horrible sound it made came once more. It was a little different from the usual one, and Connie had a weird feeling of knowing why: A man sounds different when he's fed up to the lungs, too.

"Shluuuuuuuuurrrrrrrr!"

It began moving but Connie didn't pay any attention to it. Angela lay there, completely still. Here brain simply refused to let the information reach her whole mindset but her eyes still saw what was there:

Angela was still. Her whole body was pale and seemed oddly flat. Connie had no other word for it. Red lines with small and black-red holes in their middle stood on both sides of her bodies. They looked a little bit like an X that went over her face with their meeting point over her lips. They were bloddy, crimson-red and horrible. As soon as the tentacles released from the lines small teeth came out of the holes.

And suddenly there was blood. It came from all over the lines' holes and quickly covered most of her face. Angela slowly slid towards the ground, away from her somewhat crouching position, as soon as the last teeth was released. And then its arm came towards Connie's face. It hammered into her head and left a horrible and sore pain.

She dropped to the ground and began to cry even harder. Even IF Angela wasn't dead already that thing would make sure she was. The blow flattened her on the earth and left her there. Even if she choose to pick up a fight the thing would easily pin her down and when it moved over her Connie gave no resistance. The only thought in her mind was the following:

Angela was dead and it was her fault. Angela was dead... Mom, Lonnie and Angela were dead. Dad was missing and Bonnie, of all people, lived...

Connie didn't see the small, teal and foglike something that appeared at the things head for just a moment. It screached, let go with its powerfull arms and let go of her. But she rarely perceived the whole thing. It seemingly vanished, its eyes were the only thing to be seen. Then another small teal flash appeared. It was more like a small puff of tealish fog that quickly disappeared, but the thing houled loudly.

It lay on the ground, half of its head was missing. But still the weird thing tried to get away, it smashed the door open and ran out of the room. Another tealish fog-thing appeared together with a loud noise and the thing was dead. Connie felt something come near when she shook Angela's body but she didn't care much.

The older doctor's body seemed so fragile, its skin was dry and felt like as if it could easily rip. The paleness was still there and Connie didn't know if there was still a heartbeat. Tears fell upon the older woman's body and the skin thirstly sucked them up like desert's sand. A few more sounds came, sounds like footsteps.

"Angela please wake up! I'm sorry I didn't want this thing to get you!"

She shook the body again and again but nothing happened. She cried harder but the body did not react. Something within her froze and tried to hide deeper within her body and mind. Something stared into her and looked upon things that not even Connie herself knew. It made her look up. Through a blurry vision she could see someone standing there.

It was a figure, strangely familiar and not yet the same. The figure stood there like a monument, immovable but yet mobile as well. It was something different from the things that were there before. It was black and the darkness within the room didn't help to see its sharp features as well. But even though Connie Rockwaller couldn't see the edges she could otherwise perceive them.

There were three other figures like it, clad in what could be greyish greatcoats and with long metallic objects in their hands. Two of them leant on each side of the door she and the doctor had come through. A third one stood, with a different metallic thing infront of him and a smaller weapon in his hands, between them.

Then the door opened, but whatever lay behind could not be seen. Connie finally saw what was near their heads: Red lights, two for each figure, stood above the eyesockets. Then their weapons flashed, and she could see their sharp contures between their necks and where their greatcoats began. It looked like some kind of suit or armor. It even brought up pictures of a man wearing a shirt under a smoking.

Something bumped into the middleman's metallic thing and he almost gave way. The other two held their weapons into the corridor without showing their own bodies and fired. The small yellowish lights that flashed where, excpet for their reddish eyes, the only sources of light. Connie moved her head towards the figure infront of her.

It was the same but also different. It was, oddly enough, both at the same time. It had the same yet different eyelights and looked at her with what she believed to be genuine interest. It stood there with its arms behind its back, certainly with both hands clapped together. Its head tilted slightly, the eyes moved just a little bit among and the firearm's flashes threw small amounts of light at it in short intervals.

"Help her, please! She won't stand up anymore!"

To an outside spectator such words could seem like the one of a young child, even though they were the plain and simple truth. Connie didn't know that she was in some kind of shock, nor did she know who these people were. The man showed no reaction.

"Please! I beg you!"

Again the man showed no reaction. Instead he turned his head and began to turn away.

"My name is Connie Rockwaller, and I'll do anything for you if you help her! I promise, anything!" She shouted while blinking repeatedly. The man suddenly stopped and looked at her for a short moment. Then his arms came from behind his back and showed what was in there: One thing could be a pistol while the other one was a small, slightly long and flat box of some sorts. Two small circles stood at its side and a small black band connected from the circles tops to one another.

A small cloud of icy air appeared slightly below the man's eyes. "Haaaaaaarrrrr..." It sounded like someone taking a long breath in a somewhat distand and ghostly manner. Then a small switch on the items side was pressed and the two circles began to turn. A small noise came in regular intervals, like one of something screaching infront of an item.

"I hath an offer to make..." He said, with a voice that made her shiver. The room felt cold, and the puffs infront of his "mouth" were a proof.

---

They heard gunfire and everyone suddenly stopped. They stood still, like as if someone wanted to draw a picture of them. They stood infront of a swingable doubledoor. A sign stood above it: "OP - 103". Small drawers, almost like the ones used in highschools, flatbeds and other items of furniture lay strewn around in a halfcircle.

It looked like a makeshift barricade and was certainly intended to be one. A small sidecorridor was completely blocked to chest-height by a few overthrown drawers and beds. The other sidecorridor was blocked by a barricade of about headhigh material, with a single "hole" of leftout space. It looked almost like a wall with battlements on each sides going into the walls.

The main corridor was barricaded in a similar way, with two small holes left out.

None of the girls, neither the two cops and also not the gang member knew why they had build it that way. It had simply been build like it. No one really knew why, or how. They had simply looked out for all sorts of materials and now they were stuck in that way.

Liz and Tara looked at each other with a drawer still in their hands. Od frowned and looked worried. Helen and Danny came out of the OP-room and listened around. Hanna and Chrystal seemed unable to do anything at the moment and lay still on two flatbeds. Those were not the usual beds on which people were operated on but the real beds had been for the barricade.

Three single noises came through the floor, muffled by the distance in height and the walls.

"Gunfire..." Od mumbled and Danny's face changed to worry. It had been Od's idea to put up some kind of barricade and he had been the first one to throw a few drawers over. Well, "thrown" is not the right word. Helen had mumbled something in a headache-y way when he had thrown the first one. They had quietly dropped the items after that.

More gunfire came, this time from a different kind of weapon. And they were more than one.

"Look... I know you asked that woman to come here but its not safe here with people shooting." Danny said and turned around to the OP-room. Liz put a hand around his arm and spoke up:

"So what? The doc's coming and we can't move Chrystal around much longer anyway."

She was right, and everyone knew it. Danny opened his mouth to reply when more gunfire came. It was nigh permanent and came from the same source.

---

Kim and Ron stood near a door when the gunfire began. It was dangerously close. Ron leant into the doors frame in a way Kim had never seen him do. It reminded her of an old movie she had seen in history class. It seemed to surreal, so odd, so unnatural and so weird. Ron shouldn't stand around like that. HER Ron shouldn't stand around like that.

And then she spotted something even more unsettling: In each one of his hands lay a weapon: The smaller one which he had found first was in the right. Its belt hung around his shoulder and the weapon pointed losely forward. His armored finger lay close to its trigger. The other weapon, the one which had been in the locker before, lay in his left hand. He held both things like as if they had a paper's weight.

"Ron!" She exclaimed in an annoyed and disappointed manner.

The armored behemoth turned towards her. She couldn't read any emotion in it because of the mask. "What?"

"The guns! You can't run around like as if you're about to shoot someone! This is no western movie!"

Ron remained queit for a moment, he seemed to ponder her saying. "So?" Came the reply. Kim was surprised, to say at least. Ron would never say anything against her, at least not when common sense was on her sense. She did the last thing. The very last thing that no guy could resist.

She did the puppy pout. "You reeeeeeeaaaallly don't want to put these thingies down?"

Ron looked away and his entire poisture showed annoyance. It was not the reaction she had expected. Ron had never been annoyed at the puppy pout.

He had never been annoyed because of her. Something wasn't right...

She made all the effort to look harmless and like a little puppy. All fluffy, sweet, innocent and alike. "Not even for meeeeeee?"

---

Ron grumbled in annoyance and anger, and even through the mask's filter he could see that Kim heard it. Her poisture changed just a little bit but. But she did not faulter in her attack and went on. He grumbled again but it did not help. He snarled loudly and put the mp40 on his back while he held the m4 at its grip, which was the nod and bead at the same point. Who was she to speak to him that way?

Then he pointed his free right hand and index finger at her. He spoke in a voice that was close to an accusion: "Fine! But this is the last time you command me around!"

He saw Kim's reaction. Her entire body seemed to falter slightly and her entire stance collapsed. She was vulnerable, so vulnerable and weak in that moment. Ron wondered why he hadn't noticed earlier. Her eyes were wide with disbelief and her mouth was open. He began walking past her and noticed just how easily he could attack her in that moment... her defenses were down, completely gone.

Everything seemed so clear all over the sudden...

"Wha- What do you mean 'command me around'?" She asked with a voice that showed her insecurity. A small smile came upon his lips, but only behind the mask. Then he turned around to bath in his victory. He had smit her so easily and with nothing but a few words. Then he saw more then just her weakness. Her disability to fight. There was something more... something that made him angry.

At himself.

"Look... I'm sorry." He quietly admitted. But why did HE have to appologyze? She had done so much that was wrong and no one bothered. "Its been a lot of stress lately, and sometimes I think you don't want to let me be ME. Like as if you were freightened of me growing from you." Ron had struggled hard to not say "grow above you". But it WAS the truth...

"But Ron..." Kim slowly said and walked towards him.

"Sometimes I'm freightened you keep me at my current state just to... " Control me? keep me safe? "keep me from changing."

"Oh Ron... look I do want you to change. I just don't want you to change into what you are right now..." She said while looking at his weaponry.

"And WHAT am I right now?" He asked, but Kim lowered her head and said nothing. He smiled behind the mask. Another victory. She was so weak.

"Not MY Ron... " She whispered, and it made him angry. He was not her Ron. He was his own Ron. And who did she think she was to demand how he had to be, anyways?

"Not the Ron I love..." Kim then said. It changed something within him. The smile vanished and changed into concern. She was right. Maybe she wasn't trying to keep him low so that she got all the glory. Maybe she really tried to make all the people they helped see that Team possible, and not just her, did all the work. Maybe, just maybe, he was wrong.

But the part of him that thought this way was a small one, and it was quickly subdued by the part in charge.

He mentally yelled at himself for having been so patheticly weak. And while they hugged this mental shouting drowned the smaller voice of reasoning out. The small voice that made him hug her.

---

Betty tried to think. She really, really tired. She tried hard to think reasonably. And while she was angry at Albert, her strange companion, one thing kept her from shooting him outright. It was one thing her old mentor had taught her: Always stay reasonable. She forced herself to ask a few questions: Am I reasonable? Do I let feelings into my thoughts? Am I neutral?

And while she asked herself these questions she reached the conclusion: No. No, she was not reasonable. And her Brain, which had been almost completely away for a few moments, stepped back into action.

She forced herself to calm down, to count to ten and take a deep breath. And while she did so Albert was trying to get an elevator running.

He mumbled nonsensical stuff and pressed seemingly random buttons on the elevators panel. Betty took a deep breath and thought about all the things that had happened: They had found a highly agressive being with a weird red glimmer in the eyes. They had found a videotape which seemed odd and somewhat shifty.

And there was Albert, who suddenly strangled her to subconciosness but not death. There was the message to not follow him which had been written in a children's kind of language. There was Albert with an oddly shifting eye while the other one remained normal. And there was Albert who said things in a tongue she didn't know.

It seemed way too odd. And things that seemed odd always ended in horrible disasters. The reason was: The things were odd because one didn't know what they were and what they meant. And this lead to not knowing how to deal with them. And in not a few cases these odd things were agressive in a way.

And so Betty Director forced herself to turn around and look. And what she saw was undescribable. It was so clear but yet to foggy, it was cataclysmic and yet small. It was Garden eden and a catastrophe just as much. Her eyes tried to take in what should be there infront of her.

But there _was_ nothing infront of her. There was nothing that existed infront of her. Betty's eyes failed to take into knowledge what was not, something that was not a something. A something that was not. A something that was not, but saying that it was not meant, that it was soemthing. And it was not...

Betty saw, while her physical eyes could not take in what should lay infront of her. She _saw, _she grasped a small interpretation of what it could mabe mean. It was so clear but not yet there.

Instead of seeing something she saw nothing. When one sees something it is different from other things, and thus noticable. But Betty saw not something. Instead she saw that there was some kind of hole in what could be seen.

And her eyes interpreted that "hole" to be a tall and absolutely black man something that strode towards them.

---

Helen sat on top of a stretcher. She slowly gut up what increased her already immense headache. Her head felt like as if someone was playing an arcade game within it. The woman walked towards the doubledoor what took longer then she expected it to do. her entire head was a blur. The room seemed oddly familiar and a single name stood out in her foggy mind.

Danny.

Everything else was like behind a wall of mist, there but hidden. She opened the door, almost dreamily and slowly.

"So that's how drunkards feel- ooowwww..." She put a hand to her head which kept shaking back and forth slightly. Then she looked out of the door. She had heard loud noises, certainly gunfire, but there was nothing at the moment.

There were several females and two males, one of them seemed to be Danny. Her vision was blurry and wobbly, and the only thing she could clearly make out were...

Red lights. Always two at a time. The figures seemed vaguely grey, somewhat like males. But their lights... they seemed like as if they stood right infront of them. Everything but those lights was behind a curtain of murky greyish wobble. There were two figures that seemed to climb over some kind of barricade.

One of them had slightly brown skin, she was certainly a decendant of hispanic people. The other one had read hair that was there, but as blurry as the rest and unlike the red lights.

The lights... they seemed so close... her headache increased. She felt something odd in her head, something that twisted around within her and then, suddenly, it was gone again. What remained was the headache. One of the males turned towards her and its face became slightly clearer. It seemed friendly.

"Helen? We've got someone to look for you! Now please get inside and let the doctor..." Then he turned towards one of the two women.

"Possible. Angela Possible." She said, but something seemed odd.

"Let Doctor Possible look after you!" Danny said and finished his sentence. She put another look at the greyish men. Their eyes seemed so odd for just a moment. There was something odd about the doctor and she knew it. Maybe there was something wrong. She looked past the doctor and upon her upper torso and throat. She narrowed her eyes.

For a moment, just for a short moment, there seemed to be a red X across her face and throat. And in exactly that moment the Doctor touched her throat at one of these red lines. Then it was suddenly gone, but the hand remained.

"Oww..." The doctor said after hissing quietly. She seemed to be in pain.

"You allright doctor?" Danny said and looked at her and upon something near her throat.

And then Helen's vision was suddenly clear, even if just for a short moment. There was a small scar that ran from her jaw, over the throat, to her shoulder-to-ribcage connection. It was not more but a faint white line, but it was there. Then Helen looked up, over Angela's shoulder and directly into the red lights.

"Yes... I'm alright. I just slipped in the shower two days ago and there was sharp edge..." Angela said nonchalantly.

They were about seven, but the one in the middle seemed slightly different. There was some kind of flash or fluctuation, almost too fast to perceive, within the two red lights of the grey man that stood in the middle of their line. And the headache became bigger, even though the raise was almost nothing.

And suddenly the red X, the scar, and the grey men were no longer something Helen bothered herself with.


	56. Awakening

I appologize for the long wait. My school put all the important ending exams into two weeks what screwed up my time-plan -

Anyways, I'm done with school for now (I mean a job training, I'm already done with regular school) which means that I'll be able to update much faster and regular.

I will include written speach or phrases in other languages, just like I already did when Kim and Ron met the greycoated men for the first time. I try to rewrite the words so that the way they sound like is being shown in English. So, for example, the german word "Hallo" would be written as _"Hullo"_ with the U being spoken like the U from the word Under. I'll add explanations for the spellings with every word as well.

Please review! Its just a click and a little bit of typing. I'd simply like to know if anyone is still readiny my story and if it is being appreciated. Alas, have fun with this chapter.

---

It was cold and the buildings floors seemed highly rejective. But still two people ran through the floor and into an elevator. One of these two was an Ex-firefighter and had one eye with oddly shifting colors, some of which seemed impossible to perceive.

The other one was a woman in her mid-twenties. She had lost an eye due a car accident in her youth. But that could not hinder her determination. This woman was the boss of a worldspanning organisation that stood for safety and protection.

Yet none of the two could protect themselves from what was coming.

They stood in an elevator whose doors were about to close. He was mumbling nonsensical stuff and she was panting heavilly.

"Albert, what is this about?" Betty asked with her patience slowly fading even more.

"Hak! Pu cumbra, es mable." He huffed. The doors made a small "DING" noise and began to slide shut.

Betty looked up into what could be following them. Until now she had only felt an odd urge to run away, and none of her training was able to control it. The fact that Albert had been pulling her was a part of it as well.

But then her rational mind somewhat stopped working. It did so at the exact moment of time that her eyes saw what was infront of them. Or they tried at least.

There was nothing anymore, nothing that could be seen. There was no floor, there were no walls and the ceiling was almost… gone as well. Her head screamed at her that such a thing was impossible. The building would collapse with that big parts of it missing.

But still everything went on like this… like as if the elevator was unaffected of it.

The only thing that was still there were small patches of the ground infront of the elevator. But even they simply turned black. Or at least the turned into what she believed to be black. Her mind couldn't explain what happened to the ground and went to the "going black" idea.

And then she looked further up.

Her mind could not grasp what was there, or if there was anything at all, and the only thing that she could interpret was the spots. Red spots, always in pairs, like eyes that looked at her, loomed everywhere within that… blackness. If it was blackness at all.

She felt like something was leaving within her, like as if something seized to be. It was neither a good or bad feeling but instead a feeling that was without any emotion attached to it. It was not even there anymore.

There were still small specks of "land" and with the help of those she could somewhat see what happened after that. The eyes began to move, and they did so in a horribly detached kind of way. It seemed like as if the laws of physics, the ground, gravity and such things were no bother for them.

Or like as if they no longer existed.

The door slit shut, and sealed them off. Betty and Albert were alone in a small island of sanity. A small patch of reality in a surreal environment, it was a small rock of existance in a lake of ending.

---

Bonnie put a small plate of sandwiches on the table, as well as a set of new clothes: A dark blue baggy sweater, a rather long white buttonshirt and long white jeans. She wondered what the hell was going on and what exactly was the problem.

"He can't just wake up and scream all day long… that's not normal." She sank deeper into her comfortable seat on the couch and mused on. She felt highly uncomfortable with the current situation.

"Waking up with lots of zombie-ish dudes and weird thingies ain't normal either. And all those explosions… where are the others, anyway?"

She stood up and wondered if he was alright, just as much as the others. They were not only her team, but also her friends, in a way. She was by far not as close to them as to Tara, but they were still what Bonnie could call friends.

Bonnie also thought about how Max felt like. She had seen him run around, throw himself into mud and all that in nothing but a shirt and jeans. And that backpack sure wasn't light either. She cast a look at the rifle and backpack that she had put to rest near the opposite wall.

There was the pack with its straps lying loose and a small white stripe with bullets at the lower end showing out. The rifle leant against the wall with the knife still attached to its front. She hadn't dared to touch the thing. And now, as she looked closer, one thing came to her mind.

She stood up, walked closer to it and looked at it. There was… was it really what she thought it to be?

Her voice almost faltered: "That is… blood!" She toppled backwards and fell on her butt while looking at the thing. She had seen him stab and thrust with that thing but she had never really thought about it. Her eyes slowly wandered towards the gun's lower end, unwillingly, yet she was unable to keep them from doing so.

There were small dots of red on its end. Small dots of blood. She remembered him ramming that thing into a man that lay on the ground again and again, right into the face. And she remembered his face: So empty, so shallow…

She shook her head violently and tried to think of something else. But the thought still lingered in her head: She walked with a murderer…

---

Doctor Possible felt quiet odd. Her head seemed foggy and her mind was that as well. Everything seemed so far away. The people felt like as if they were meters away even though they stood beside her. Everything seemed so ungraspable.

And there was that odd itch in her throat. It felt a little bit like an old injury or something alike. As a child Angela had hit her head once. There had been a small scar at the back of her head since then. And, after the operation, a small itch had been there sometimes.

It was the same thing she felt now, except for that there was no scar. At least there was none that she could see. The policewoman sat on a chair nearby and the younger girl lay on the operating table. Angela had already got out a few scalpells and other tools.

She wasn't used to work without assistants, other doctors and nurses. It was an unusual experience and one that she didn't want to have. But the situation demanded quick action, and if teenagers have to fumble around with firearms something was definitely screwed up.

She looked at the young teenager that lay before her and wondered. She was about the same age of Kim, and she even looked a little bit like her. She wondered where her daughter was and if she was fine. She had done so very often, and even though her daughters "missions" became a part of day-to-day life she never stopped with it.

Her eyes went over the thin thing that stuck in the girls belly. She didn't know how deep it was or if any organs were hurt. Her hands slowly and carefully released the bandage that kept the thing in place. They had made sure that the thing would stay fixed and not do even more harm.

Her mind, which had been so foggy all the time, suddenly became clearer. What if Kim lay somewhere else on an operating table? And what if it was even more that "only" a small thing in her belly? What if she got seriously hurt, or even more?

She shook her head and blinked several times. Such lines of thought never seized to come but now they were stronger than ever. The girl mumbled something and her head moved aside. For just a moment Angela saw her daughter lying on the table with a heavilly bleeding stomach.

She felt her hands tremble slightly, shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she looked at the girl again and saw her, and not her daughter. She sighed and looked at the bandage. She felt something ease her mind ever so slightly.

It seemed to calm her and it felt like a warmth deeply within her. With a little bit more confidence than before she began to untie the bandage. The odd feeling grew and her hands went to work faster and more accurately.

And then the warmth reached its peak. Something tender and helping dropped on her shoulder and she slowly turned around to see what it was. A hand lay on her shoulder and her eyes followed to who it belonged.

There was a blond girl standing there with her hand resting on Angela's shoulder. She looked rather beautifull in a somewhat sweet way. But it was also clear to see that she was becoming an attractive young woman. But what amazed Angela was the smile that girl carried.

"Are you allright Mrs. Possible? May I help you?" She asked.

"Yes. But I didn't get your name right the last time." It was easy to say the words.

"I'm Tara. And this here is Connie." The girl said while smiling nicely and gesturing towards the other girl that stood beside her. It was more of a young woman and she seemed rather nervous. Her right hand seemed to always rest on her left upper arm and scratched it sometimes.

"Oh I know Connie already. She's such a fine woman."

Angela frowned slightly when she saw Connies face. She looked at something in a very concerned and concentrated manner. Angela followed the look and saw that she was looking at the small thing near the girls belly.

"Connie is something-" Tara began.

"She still has some time. Not much, though." Connie replied without looking away. She seemed confident, almost like as if she absolutely knew what she was talking about.

Angela looked at her with surprise: "You mean the girl here? How come you-"

Connie bit her lip and it seemed like all certanity flashed from her. She started to scratch her left upper arm.

"I just… know it." She said without keeping her eyes off.

"Hmm… maybe you could take care of the lady over there?" Angela asked the two girls.

Connie looked at her and scratched her arm again. "_Pennitsillin-drey-U-fear_" She spoke the U like the "u" from the word "under".

Both of the other females looked at her with confusion.

"I mean… Penicillin-3-A-4." She suddenly added with a nervous voice.

"How do you wanna know that?" Angela inquiered. She was astonished by the exact namingof a medicine. There was indeed such a medicine, but it was a type of penicillin that was no longer in service. It was out of order for more than thirty years to be precise.

"I just know, okay!" She added while still scratching her left arm. It seemed to be a habit.

There was silence for a moment until Helen murmured quietly. Then Angela looked at Tara.

"Could you look go into the storage room on the second floor and look for that medicine? It should have some of those left. And take the other officer with you."

Tara nodded and went away while Connie stayed. She stepped closer to the girl on the table. Her belly was now completely exposed and showed the small thing that stuck in her. It was thin, grey and seemed to have very small holes inside.

Angela looked at it. It was something completely new to her. She had seen tumors, small injuries and even the occasional knife sticking in a body. But this was completely new to her. It neither seemed to be a bladed weapon used in brawls, nor was it a bullet of sorts.

She was about to touch it when Connies hand held hers back. She frowned.

"No, its… trapped." Connie said with that same somewhat detached but focused look.

Then, before Angela could do anything, Connie had a scalpell in her hand and began to cut around the spot where the thing stuck in.

"What the hell are you doing!" She shouted and tried to take the arms away but they were like iron bars: Irrestable, immovable. Then Angela simply stopped, too shocked by what she saw: The girl made perfect cuts, her hand never twitched, her concentration never broke.

There was only a thin line of blood coming out of the cuts which was not really normal.

"Do you see this? The blood isn't right. That comes from the stinger." Connie went on cutting.

"Wha-What?" Angela stammered, unable to grasp why she staring like a spectator and beginner. She felt reminded of her days as an assistant doctor, the days when she had been nothing but an onlooker. The girl went on and it didn't seem to bother in any way that slight amounts of blood were flowing.

Connie's lips were moving like as if she was talking but no sound came. They made movements that repeated all the time, almost like the ones in a prayer. Angela was more than confused: The girl below her should already wake up from the pain but instead she remained silent.

The scalpell went deeper but no more blood flowed. It was, by Angela's anatomic knowlegde, bot possible to do such a thing. Angela strained to listen to what Connie mumbled to herself and heard one phrase again and again: Once more the U was like U from under.

_"Inn suynemm Nuhmen"_

---

New clothes. That was the second most important thing at the moment. The first important thing was his leg. Or was it Bonny? She seemed to be more important, but without a working leg he wouldn't be able to walk around either…

Max leant against the door of the toilet. He could see the toilet itself, the mirror and the sink. There was also a bathing tub. He went to the sink and shook his head. There was no time. No time at all. His mind was in disarray, but his body could work alone for short amounts of time.

His body sat down while he was still somewhat parted. Its hands went to the first aid bag on his left upper leg while his head wasn't clear. Nothing was clear at all, but still his body went on like a machine.

His lips spoke wihtout his mind really noticing: "All machines are his…"

He didn't really register the red streaks that stained his knee. Nor did he pay much attention to his own hands putting a syringe of painkillers into the leg. Everything went on, almost like someone who is sleepwalking does. A small bit of cloth received drops of medicine and went to the very small black-reddish encrusted holes.

The pain was sharp and not short, and it brought him somewhat back to focus. He put a bandage around the upper leg, just above the knee. He was lucky, none of the shrapnell had pierced the kneecap itself. All of them were slightly above the joint and in the lower part of the upper leg.

After some time he came back to senses and was surprised to see himself in a toilet. In a clean toilet with a mirror.

"What… how did I get here?" He asked, almost like someone who had, finally, awoken from a nightmare. He slowly got towards the door and looked into the mirror. He looked like crap. His entire body and clothes were covered in mud. He took of the glasses and looked again.

Without much further thought he covered the mirror with a blanket. Mirrors showed the past…

He cleaned his face and slowly moved to the door after cheking his pistol. It was loaded and ready. He took it out and slowly turned the doorknob and shoved the door. Then he peered through the now opening door. From a safe distance of at least 2 meters, of course.

Nothing showed itself and so he leant agains the side of the wall that held the door's joints and looked. Nothing in sight except for a kitchen corner and a door. So he peered through the other side and-

"You can just come out you know?" A voice. A familiar voice… Bonnie! He immediately stepped out with the pistol back in its holster. There was a couch as well as his gear and Bonnie. She sat on the couch with her legs folded above each other.

She looked stunningly... good.

A small purple top covered her luxurious chest and showed the forms of her wellformed and female breasts. Her arms were crossed infront of her chest and underneath her breasts, which had an astounding and natural push-up effect for her full round brests. Her naked bellybutton, tigh and skin were flawless, flat and beautiefull.

Her purple skirt covered only a tad of her neatly muscled, amazingly long and highly attractive legs. Her skin was sweatly tanned and without any scars, pickles or alike. That was already enough to hold his attention, but her face was the most interesting of it all.

It might not be the thing to hold his first looks, but it was definitely what held them for the longest time. Her face was like the one of the Mona Lisa, full of secrets, sweet, erotic, girlish, arousing and simply breathtaking. Her full and healthily colored lips were wonderfull already.

The small and subtly beatifull nose was there, but there were the eyes as well. They were teal, a kind of blue that the water at some beaches held. They were deep like the ocean and he could easily lose himself and drown within them. Which was, already then, a wonderfull and calming feeling.

He couldn't keep his eyes from hers and he saw something he had never expected, but always hoped, to see: Concern. Her neatly trimmed eyebrows furred slightly and her beachwaterblue eyes narrowed slightly. He found himself to be the object of interest what gave him an oddly warming feeling in his chest.

That warming feeling started to heat up his metabolism, breathing and heartbeat. It made him warm up. It made him addictive. His leg no longer felt as bad as before and the cold in his bones seized a little bit. She was a drug, just like she had been the first time he had seen her in the basement. And he was addictive of her.

Her head tilted slightly and so did her beautifull, shoulderlong and wellkempt brown hair. It had a hazel color that wonderfully harmonized with her skin's color. However, it was still a different enough shade of brown to be different from her skin, while still fitting to it, what made her hairs even more adorable.

And the smell that she radiated… He felt his nostrils become more sensitive as soon as her smell reached him. It was oddly… good. He knew no other word for it: It was simply positive and nice. And calming as well. Her lips parted slightly and he knew that they did only for him. It was a warming and elevating thought.

"Are you okay?" Her voice was basicly like it had always been, except for one thing: It seemed worried, outright caring. Her voice, as much as the words it brought, were like a healing lotion for his troubled mind.

"You were so cold and… Oh god I was so freightened you wouldn't wake up anymore!"

She seemed concerned… Concerned for him. It was a foreign but sweet concept. Did she care? Did she care about him? A small and warm flicker of hope came up within him, almost like a candle.

"You gotta promise me that you're not gonna do such a thing again!" She exclaimed while her entire face showed concern. She unlocked her long legs, what showed a little bit more of them, and stood up. After that she unhooked her arms and put them on her hips. It is needless to say that this accented her luxurious and busty chest.

He couldn't put into words what his feelings where when she came closer to him. Her hips swung seducively and invitingly at him while she walked. Then she stopped. He had to bring up all his willpower to not move his arms around her.

He wanted to caress her skin and lips with his own and feel her tongue locked in a deep kiss with his. He wanted to move his hands under her skirt and gently fondle her buttocks. He wanted to move his hands around them, pull her closer and caress them in his warm hands embrace.

Furthermore he wanted his hands to carefully move over the inner sides of her upper legs and the triangle of warm pubic hair and soft flesh that lay underneath her panty. He longed for his hands to glide under her top and envelop her full round bosoms with his fingers playing gently with her nipples.

He wished for her touch and longed for her attention. He desired her like an addict wanted his drug. But all these things were only physical, they were only ways to express the feeling that he wanted her to feel for him: Care and devotion, allotment and appropriation.

She smiled. It almost made him lose control over his body when their eyes kept contact.

"Do you know how much you weigh?" She asked with a jokingly voice while smiling ever so sweetly.

"Umm… not… exactly." He answered. It was hard to find words, and her influence on him wasn't the only reason for that. He felt like something was growing within him, something he deemed long lost: A smile. Maybe it would come up if she kept being this way.

Her index finger suddenly rammed his chest and pushed him back. He was taken aback.

"You're going on diet! I almost cramped my back when I dragged your stupid overweight body up those stupid stairs!" She spoke with anger and contempt in her voice.

"Er.. wh-what?"

"You got me right you idiot!" She venomed at him. "And here are some new clothes for you!"

She pressed the clothes into his chest and he found himself clutching them numbly. She briskly walked off.

"And don't you DARE peak on me while im changing!" She almost spat out while walking into the kitchen with a bunch of clothes in her hands. She didn't even look at him.

"Umm.. Bonnie what-" BAMM The door shut and Max found himself lying on the ground and looking around for cover. It had sounded like a shell's impact.

Max felt his candle being blown out by a harsh and cold wind, and everything became even colder than before.


	57. Awakening part 2

Please review!

---

The armor chafed, it made Kim feel uncomfortable and no matter how much she tried, it never seemed right. Ron was inside that armor and behind that mask, but sometimes she had to ask herself if it was still_ her_ Ron inside that armor. However, his embrace still felt great, even thouh not as much as it used to. The warmth that always came into her when they were close was dampened.

She sighed and leant herself a little bit more against his frame. She might always been faster and more agile but he still had more muscle and mass than she had. There was a surprising amount of strength hidden in his small-looking body. Even though they were of same height she sometimes thought that Ron was simply bigger, greater, than she could ever be.

There was so much of a person within him, so much generosity, kindness and helpfullness. And, in her opinion, that was strength. It was all so neatly packed into him, without any free space unused and with every corner filled with what she could only name Ron-ness. He was almost like a stomped car in a scrapyard: So much matter pressed into a so small frame.

She couldn't really pinpoint whatever was there within him. It was something that made her feel better and something that replenished her everytime. He was, in a way, so much greater than her. A small flame of anger rose at the thought of how few people actually saw that. They always thought that she alone was the hero but that was wrong. She simply wouldn't be able to bring up the necessary willpower for all the worldsaving if he hadn't been there.

She slowly let go and looked at him. There was a mask in the way of his face and her sight. That blackened material, the orange-red lenses and their gloomy light... Her brows furrowed and something within her head started up. The face seemed dangerous, suddenly it appeared like the hide of a monster.

Something within screamed at her to leave his embrace, for he was a trap. The voice started shouting even more but it was drowned out by the crackling of fire washing over an overthrown table. The sudden stroke of fire seized, but louder noises of something like a movie's firefight sounded up, together with the noise of small balls pinging of a metal sheet. And in all that was that mask. She recognised the high-schools cafeteria.

It was there, staring at her, both within their embrace and in that odd bunch of thoughts and wobbly pictures. The mask was there, its eyes flared at her everhungry, it directed a small tube of metal with a blueish flame at her. It seemed like the small fire they sometimes produced with Bunsen-burners in chemistry class.

Ron came closer, or was it just that mask of a face? She felt an overwhelming urge to just pull back, and then suddenly, it all was gone. The pictures retreated to where they had come from, and Ron slowly let her go. He looked at her for a moment before walking off. Kim was surprised to not be asked if she was fine, or something alike. She shrugged her shoulders lightly and let it slide. They were under a lot of stress after all.

They slwoly departed and moved further down a dimly lit corridor.

---

Tara looked at their makeshift barricade. There was not a single reason in her head that justified building such a thing. Sure, a lot of very dangerous things had happened, but they were with two cops now, so everything would be fine. The police always knew what to do. She let her eyes move over the people that were close to her:

Od was busy with putting up another floded chair so that Danny could sit. He took up the offer without looking away from Hanna, who seemed to be talking to him all the time. Tara smiled lightly at the expression on his face. She knew what that meant: It was the "just keep talking while I go elsewhere with my mind" kind of face. It was clear, at least to her, what Hanna would feel like.

"...and then you came and picked us up." She finished a sentence with admiration clearly in her voice. Her eyes never let go of the male infront of her. Liz was still working on that huge gun which lay upon a small "window" of their barricade. Tara still wondered why it had been set up in the first place, and how they had managed to set it up so quickly.

She was also amazed at the fact that neither Danny nor Helen tried to take the guns away from them, nor did they ask too many questions. They were just walking along. To Tara it felt oddly... right. It felt like the exactly right thing to do. There were no time-consuming questions, no moronic attempts to determine who had authority over who.

Danny and Od where surprisingly calm as well. She would have expected trouble between them but everything seemed peacefull among them. It was a nice and good thing. With all that trouble going on and with such dangerous things running around infighting would be the least usefull thing.

However, she still wondered as to why they behaved the way they did. Not that she objected, it was usefull.

---

Neither of the two really knew what exactly happened in Middleton but it was clear that escaping it was the better option. Furthermore Shego was hurt very badly what rendered all Operations thwarted. However, oddly enough, Drakken couldn't feel what he always felt when the red-head thwarted his plans.

There was not the usual anger, both at her and his odd mistakes. Neither was Shego making any snide remarks towards his failed plan. She was busy with looking around with the teddy in her lap. The whole picture felt stupid: It looked more like a couple having a walk in a hospital for fun than two villains trying to escape. But escape from what? He tried to remember the weird grey things.

They had tried to cut him in the car and only Shego's timely intervention had saved him from one of those. And now she was wondering why Drakken carried a mace and a shotgun with himself. She really wondered how he overcame his "phobia" against firearms. It was way too stupid: He could simply buy a couple of guns and take lessons with them.

There were enough gunshops in america that did nearly everything for money, even supplying and training a known villain. It would be so amazingly easy to kill the Princess with a couple of shots. Shego remembered the day she had almost hired a mercenery to get rid off her.

"Drakken?" She asked and looked towards the man who moved her wheelchair.

"Yes? Do your injuries hurt again?" He replied with concern.

"No. I just wondered if you remember the day when I hired that merc-" She started, but Drakken interrupted her.

"Yes. I do." His voice was surprisingly snide. Shego slapped her forehead. She had forgotten just how angry he had been with her.

"Well I just thought we could give him a call-"

"NO we won't!" Drakken almost roared. It was not usual to see him get out of his temper so much. She sighed and remembered exactly what had happened on the first day of that ordeal:

---

There was a room with only a small lightbulb hanging above a desk with two chairs on each sides. A door opened and Shego stepped in and looked around. His place, his time and his conditions. That was the price to pay aside of lots of money. But money could be got from whereever it was necessary.

She sat down and looked around. The place was rather creepy and even though she knew lots of creepy places this one creeped her out. Something about the place seemed not right, it seemed to miss, it seemed to no longer be there. She also had the feeling of being watched, which was not an unusual thing. She was used to it. But this was creepy... she felt like as if the shadows themself were watching her.

And they disapproved of what they saw.

But that was unnormal. Everything within her body seemed to want to get away: Her eyes darted around nervously and sought for something or someone who was watching her. Small drops of sweat formed on her forehead. The place intimidated her. And intimidating Shego was an almost impossible thing to do.

She looked around once more and shifted her shoulders uneasily. Then she looked back to the chair. Whatever was watching her came closer. She sat there, alone, in a small bulb of light when the darkness itself seemed to come closer. She could swear to have seen things in there. Things that should not be seen... Things that made her whole body shiver. Something horrible was nearby.

And then she looked at the desk and shuddered.

A man in his twenties sat on the other side. Shego yelped in suprise and a little bit of fear. She almost jumped out the chair in fright.

He wore a dark-blue jeans and a similarily colored sweatshirt. Nothing that would stand out in a crowd. He seemed unusual except for his hair and eyes. The hair seemed somewhat grey even though it looked brown. He seemed old. Way too old. She really had to concentrate upon looking at him. It felt like as if he would vanish if she didn't focus on him.

And the eyes were... cold. Everytime Shego looked into that beings eyes she felt like as if the man was no longer alive. He seemed dead inside, even though his heart still hammered. He sat there in the light without many recognisable features. He looked like someone you wouldn't notice when you saw him again.

"My name is Shego. I want to see someone... dealt with." She said and it took a great effort to not stammer.

The man sat there with his hands folded together infront if his face. Only the top of his nose and what lay above could be seen. He moved nothing, he stood still like a statue. She felt watched. Horribly watched.

She put a photo upon the table. It showed Kim Possible on top of a pile of destroyed walkers. He didn't look at the photo but instead kept gazing into her eyes. Her feeling of discomfort grew by far. She was out in the open, surrouned by who knew how many things and people and she was honorstly frightened by that man.

"I got that your letter said the price was... " She put a small bag on the table and opened it. A big looking amount of money was inside.

Again the man didn't look at the item and instead stared at her eyes. Shego felt that something was wrong.

"It was the demanded sum... I don't get what your problem is."

The man took breath with a shallow sound and spoke with a voice that seemed to be the one of a ghost: "_...leave..._"

"Umm... All right. I guess we have a deal then?" Shego mentally slapped herself for being so unproffesional. She looked like a little moron who got freightened at little stuff and not like the villain she was. Her eyes went up and looked into his. They were dead. She gulped. It made click within her mind. That man was way out of her league.

He was a murderer without remorse. It was business for him and nothing more. People's lives were there for him to gain money. His eyes were shallow and lifeless, but also possessed some kind of horrible intelligence.

She knew she was different, at least in a way. That man would rip her throat apart if someone offered him a sum for it, right there. She wouldn't. If Drakken's plans got a few people killed it was something different than killing someone outright. Heck, she wanted to humiliate and defeat the Princess, and if it worked without killing her that would be even better.

Murder simply didn't seem necessary to win...

She turned around and left. After she was out of the door she ran for almost ten minutes. That man was... inhuman.

A slight ping of regret formed within her. Maybe setting someone like that upon Kim was wrong... but then, maybe he got the job, that Drakken and her couldn't accomplish, done? Shego remembered the eyes. She had seen herself within them, she had seen herself stand above the dead princess with bloodied claws and a sick grin.

She ran away from the old warehouse and from the man. She would never become like him. Never ever, not even for world domination.

Shego ran away from Death.

---

"Yeah... that guy was way too creepy..." Shego mumbled. Drakken moved her further until they stopped infront of a door. She looked at the Doctor and wondered about her dream. It had been very odd. But maybe a few of the things that were said in that dream were true.

"Drakken... I never asked you about your family." She said while trying to sound casual.

"Hmm... Well you met my mother. She can be quiet annoying." He answered.

"Yeah but normally a family has two members. I just wondered about your second part."

"..."

"You know... the fatherly second part."

"..." Drakken remained silent again for a few minutes.

"Fine, if you don't wanna talk-"

"Tell me why you wanna know and I'll think about it." Shego wasn't exactly prepared to tell him the truth.

"Okay... look I'll just tell you. I had a really weird dream. I was on the couch and you were cooking for me and then we talked. You said I had a nightmare... so I awoke in a dream. Are you following?"

"Yeah, go on." Drakken answered. He seemed so different all the time. He made no cheap puns, no stupid rants and showed no childish behaviour at all. It was very odd at least. Sometimes she thought he was changing. But when she thought about it, her being shot and almost killed surely blew the frame.

"So you said I mumbled about my dad in my sleep, and you started telling me about yours. You said he went missing when you were a kid and that your mom cried a lot about. You also said you tried to help her pretty much and that her last 'fit' was about two weeks ago."

"Umm... well... that is sort of right..." Drakken slowly admitted. Shego's brows furred. It was a side of Drakken she had never seen before.

"Oh well, times are tough." She mubmled quietly.

---

Ron looked at Kim once and went off again. Why did she have to slow him down with stupid emo-stuff? Why couldn't she just let him be the boss for once? They were making really good distance! Although... he was making good distance while she kept ranting about emotions and such stuff.

Why did she have to boss him around all the time anyway? He stopped and looked into himself. He thought intensively. He was fast and strong to deal with Drakken and Shego if they were to come up. She slowed them... no she slowed HIM down.

A thought sparked within his head. A thought. It wasn't much more than that but it put everything to a new point of view. Everything began to make sense. Everything began to become oddly clear.

---

The chief and his new friends ran as fast as they could. His pistol was empty and his companions had no more ammo as well. One of the elder GI's still had a thompson mp but that wouldn't help much. It's clip held about 30 shots and only a small part of them would become lethal headshots. And that was already an optimistic estimation.

They ran through a small alley. Lots over lots of undead scrambled behind them and followed them like a horde of groupies. Groupies with murderous intent, that is. They kept going as long as they could but the Chief saw something very discomforting. The driver of their supposed-to-be escape truck was running out of breath. The man wasn't used to so long walks and sprints.

But he wouldn't let the man down, he just wouldn't.

People slowly strolled into the sideway before them. And since it was a small gap between two solid buildings there was only a small path. A few beings appeared at the end of the narrow passage and the Chief knew exatly what they were doing. At least somewhat. Behind them lay the "entrance" into Middleton, the point through which the undead came into the city.

They surely wouldn't come only from the main road. He knew that the undead would scatter and slowly "sink" into the city from all sorts of streets, alleys, passageways and the like. Heck, they could also come out of the forests that were near Middleton. Some of these forests stretched into the city itself.

He knew that their only defense was the GI with the thompson since him and the agent had to carry Richard. And the worker could barely hold himself upon his feet anymore. It didn't look good. There would be a melee and that was not their strength. He knew not a single person that could smash or penetrate a skull with his bare hands. Sure, they had a firearm but it was too heavy and unwieldy to be flung like a brawl weapon.

The GI knelt down and fired into the moving mass. Three, four, five single shots that did nothing to the mass of walking bodies came. The closest one fo them fell down after a full hit into the chest while the others continued. The Chief was also the only one who knew how to the undead fought up close. The GI would make a single mistake and all of them would pay for it. And there were not only the undead to watch (and fear).

And indeed, from behind the few undead came a couple of less dead-looking persons. They shouted loudly and bridged the distance in not even three seconds. They already got half of the distance covered before the GI noticed them at all.. He simply didn't estimate them to come. He had been too focused on aiming at the undead. He tried to fire but saw that he had no more time and ducked away under a vicius blow.

Sometimes the Chief hated being right.


	58. Chapter 58 the REAL one

I'm sorry for the lack of new chapters, but my Internet provider somewhat messed up my Internet so I couldn't connect to it anymore. For four fucking weeks long. Oh joy. The last chapter was the same as the one before. My bad, I mistook it with this one and uploaded it before my internet got fucked up.

---

Everything made sense. When Zita ended their relationship he hadn't known why. When all the girls at school refused to even look at him he hadn't known why. Now he knew things that had eluded him before. Tara had wanted him after their escape from Camp WannaWeep but she hadn't made a move. Now he knew why.

Everything seemed so blissfully clear. The issue was there. The reason for why the school bullies kept picking on him. The reason for why no one respected him even though HE saved the world every now and then. The reason was right there in front of him.

A single thought sparked a fire in his mind. Now it was time to solve the problem. Something behind the black mask smiled. It was not him.

---

The chief dropped Richard and punched one of the enraged beings in the face. They were still human, somehow, but they worked together with the undead. He had no idea why they did so but he knew it had something to do with the blackened men. Every time these seemingly enraged persons attacked them one of the blackened men was nearby.

Two more shots rang out of the Thompson firearm but both missed their target. Said target was about to dislocate the shooters arm.

And there it came, its hatred bounced off the walls and washed over them like a wave. Nothing but cold and hatred radiated from the blackish thing that seemed to grow out of the group of undead. They continued shambling to wards them with unperturbed hunger.

Once more the Chief hated being right.

---

Kim walked past a shut door and noticed a small fountain with a mirror above it. She looked into it and was surprised to see small dots of dirt sticking on her forehead and in her hair. She briefly wondered where it had come from but quickly stopped when no memories came up. Oh well, they were in a lot of stress anyways.

And why was she in this hospital anyways? She could hardly remember.

Cool water splashed against her face and two hands cleaned it from the dirt. Her head came up again and she looked through the mirror. Ron stood several feet behind her. He seemed to be thinking about something. Then she washed her face once more. Ron seemed so thoughtfull lately. So much more thoughfull than usual. However, there were weird circumstances around them after all.

But just what circumstances? Her brow knit. Just what was she here for? And why was she here? Kim tried to look inside herself for answers but none came. There was nothing. Then she sought for something else, just something that she could remember. Her head began to ache. It was not a usual ache and not a normal one. It seemed so oddly cold and like as if even thinking about something pained her.

Kim focused harder and finally something came into view. She saw herself leaning against a wall with Ron gently holding her. She saw Ron kiss her neck and nibble her earlobes. A warm feeling spread through her at that memory, but it seemed oddly... unreal. And then her inner eye looked further down his back, where her hands carefully held on to him.

There was a gun. A firearm. A death-spitter. Ron had a gun... The whole thought seemed so weird but so real as well. Ron had a gun. Her mind said it all over and over again while becoming louder at it. He had a _gun_ . Her whole mind was screaming at her like as if there was some hidden meaning that could only be heard if the message was delivered loudly enough. She opened her eyes and slowly looked up.

Her eyes carefully wandered up wards, afraid of looking further. She felt like as if the mirror above her would hold a vile secret. A secret that would blow her sanity apart. Her eyes couldn't stop moving and her whole head, which still dripped water, moved up. There was someone in the mirror. The man said something in a language she couldn't understand by the ears, but her mind understood it just perfectly.

_"Ron has a gun". _

Her body moved sideways and to wards the ground when the glass splintered with an almost deafening crack. She prepared to make a back flip to the side. And while she was between the ground and her former position she saw the mirror in shards. Several small holes were inside the glass and long streaks showed that it had broken into pieces. But these pieces still held together.

There was a distorted image of two red dots flaring up in a mass of black behind her.

---

Tara froze when she heard gunfire somewhere. She climbed over their makeshift barricade and walked to wards the stairs. Her heart kept pounding madly, her throat felt dry and her eyes saw everything with unreal intensity. So this was what people in danger felt like... She knew that feeling even though the memories attached to it were faint at best.

Faint memories of Camp WannaWeep shifted through her mind. She had been in that dreadfull place with her kindergarten class. She remembered the weird squirrels with their razor-sharp teeth, the monkey with his hundreds of bugs and the lake. The greenish blobs on the river's surface popped in her mind and she turned around to look.

There was nothing but blackness and an empty corridor behind her. She quickly rounded the stairs and found an open door. There was a being close to the door. It stood there with its left arm stretched out and a weapon extended from it. And then Kim landed on the ground and made another jump out of sight. After that Tara saw something else in front of her.

It was a being in armor which held a weapon she hadn't seen before in a single hand. Smoke extended from its muzzle. She recognized the armor, just as much as the person underneath. Could it be? Her chest warmed up, her legs seemed to fly among the ground and her whole body seemed lightweight. Could it really be the case?

In her rush Tara failed to notice that there were several other people moving around.

---

Kim had no exact idea of what was happening. Well, she had one, but her whole heart and mind refused to believe it. It simply couldn't be even though she saw it happen. It shouldn't be happening at all. Ron stood there, with his arm raised and...no. Just plain and simple NO.

Three loud bangs sounded up and she moved aside. A whoosh of air whizzed by where she had been a moment ago.

"Stop flying around you bitch!" The being shouted. She refused to believe it.

"Ron don't do this! Just-" She said while somersaulting through the air.

"Don't you DARE command me you WHORE!" Ron yelled loudly. He put special emphasis on the last word.

"But-"

"NO! IT'S YOUR FAULT! IT'S BEEN ALL ALONG!" Ron shouted even louder. Then he aimed the weapon at her again. Kim nimbly sprinted aside and instead of firing again Ron kept moving his outstretched arm with her movements. He was waiting. Kim refused to believe it but he was learning how to use that thing on her.

"It's your fault no one liked me! Your fault none of the girls liked me! Your fucking-" Then something bumped into him. Two arms moved over his front and held stayed there.

"I'm so happy! I though- Oh god I thought you were dead!" A girl's voice sobbed behind him. Kim couldn't see who it was.

"Speak of the devil... " He said and shoved her away by bumping his hips back into her. Then he slapped her hard. The girl toppled to the ground. It was Tara.

"But... I thought..." She said while holding her bleeding cheek. Kim realized her chance and ran to wards them.

"Thought wrong you little bitch. You should have FUCKING TOLD ME!" He put his weapon at her and started pulling the trigger.

Then Kim's kick flailed his legs aside. He fell aside, his weapon went loose and its yellow lances flew aside and into walls. Kim spun on the ground and gave his still falling body a strong kick to the head. With a metallic thud her foot gave him another hit and both of them slumped to the ground. Kim winced from the pain his helmet gave her foot. But her heart ached a lot more than her foot anyways.

"You fucking piece of shit." He mumbled while getting up again.

"Tara get out of here! Ron went crazy and I dont know why!" She said. "But ill find out and make him normal again..." She mumbled to herself.

"Ron? But-" Tara said, obviously confused. She sat there and looked pretty much like a lost puppy.

"No time! He's going insane!" Kim said while lunging forward. He still had the weapon in his hand.

Tara stood up and turned around. She screamed and Kim had no time to turn around in flight. She could have done so, even though it would have been a big acrobatic feat, but her attention was fixed on the barrel that Ron pointed at her.

He fired.

---

Danny walked up the stairs saw several things. There was Tara. Between him and her stood a man. Danny realized that something VERY fucked up was happening. But then, oddly enough, he felt like as if he had felt that way before already, but he couldn't connect a memory to it.

Everything happened in less than a second.

Tara screamed and somewhere near her a weapon was shot. Then Danny noticed who shot the weapon: A slightly short grown being in a set of armor. He tried to move, but he couldnt move faster than his own perception of what was happening. Thus, something sharp and painfull entered his shoulder, then something came into his belly, then one more into the leg and then Danny saw the ground coming closer.

Oddly enough all of the thoughts in his head circled around how very much his uniform would be stained with blood. And then his mouth finally managed to make noises, but it only came out as a gargle since something metallic and small chunks of his lunch came out as well. And then he felt his hand wrap around the belly, and weird foamy stuff came through it, and then something hoisted him up.

Then he felt that bad thing which always came when he had a bleeding nose. And there was this feeling of several long sausages gushing through his hand, and it felt so unnormally warm too, and there seemed to be a little bit steam infront of his nose. And then he noticed that there was something standing next to him.

---

"SHE'S MINE YOU FUCK!" Ron yelled. Whatever the freak was who tried to take Tara from him he wouldnt try that again. Even though it was kind of annoying to see him get up again. Oh well, the gun had more bullets left after all. And now back to the very core of the problems...

He turned around (and he really enjoyed the way he could turn around now because it was awesome) and pointed his weapon to where the whore should be. But oddly enough she wasnt there.

"COME OUT THE HELL!" Annoyance, anger and hatred gushed in his mind. He felt that toward her for screwing up his life in the very beginning. He felt it to wards his own incompetence at simply shooting her. If she was gone the whole thing could be started anew. With a new Ron, one that had strength and women-

And then the pain started.

---

Kim moved on. She jumped back on to him and pounded him with fists and kicks. She hit him. She kicked him. She hurt him. It all stung deep within her heart. The fact that she was attacking her best friend (and very recent boyfriend) simply ached inside. But it hurt less than not doing something and having to think about it.

It. The fact that he had tried to kill her. Kill her. It was simply... impossible. Everything was better than having to face it, better than having to see it in the eye. Ronald betraying her would include Ronald... leaving her. And that was a thing that Kim was NOT ready to face. Anything's possible for a Possible, they say, but maybe there was just one little thing that wasn't...

And then her head started pounding.

---

Tara looked at the beings before her. There were at least four. All of them seemed to be clad in greatcoats and masks, and all of them had that eary red glow coming from the eyeglasses. But that wasn't the most unsettling thing. Danny was held up by two of them and he looked horrible. She didn't want to see it, but her mind kept on looking at him with unreal intensity.

Her eyes indulged every detail in a second that was twisted around to be so much longer. His leg was dangling down wards on a few strings of cloth and flesh and the left side of the chest was caved in and moved different than the right one when he took breath. His belly bled profusely and his hand was bathed in blood. It also seemed a little dissolved by a steaming liquid that came out of his belly.

And there were small things lying on the ground and gushing out between his hands. She didn't want to see it. And still her mind kept on taking in the sights.

"_Naehmt eehn mitt._" The man in the middle said. She had no idea what it meant since it seemed to be said in another language. The other two started pulling Danny away. Then he turned to wards her and stared into her eyes. She gulped and took a step back.

"_Ahhhhhh... dee... Undere..._" He said while a small cloud of cold mist appeared before his mask's mouthpiece.

---

Kim put another punch into Ron's belly only to see it being deflected by his armor again. He in turn lashed his second gun at her like a club with both hands. The other one lay on the ground. She rolled under his punch and behind him. After that she kicked intohis knee and made him fall down again.

"Ugh... come here and die you faggot!" He roared but exhaustion was clear in his voice. He wasn't used to this kind of fighting and the armour surely had to wear him out. He aimed the weapon at her and fired again. It was so very much harder to dodge it since the bullets flew a lot faster than anything she had have had to cope with.

The fireballs from Drakken's staffs from example. She disliked it a lot when his henchmen shot at her instead of going into melee right ahead. At least they had enough brains to stop shooting at her when she had one of them close enough for hand-to-hand fighting. But fighting against them was different from fighting against Ron.

They were masked beings in identical clothing and without any kind of personality. They were faceless goons, cheaper by the dozen. And a single blow or kick could easily take them out. But Ron was different... his armour rendered him almost invincible. It was impenetrable at most places and the joints were hard to reach. She could hit him all day long and he would only suffer bruises.

He got up again and a small growl kept growing behind his mask. His emotionless mask fixated her moves when he suddenly threw up his gun once more. It's heavy rumbling filled the air again and she could only narrowly escape the bullets by leaping forward. She had no idea how he managed to use that thing with just one hand. It surely weighed a lot...

She couldn't exactly escape the bullets as soon as the flew. But she could jump away in the small time frame between the aiming and the actual firing of the weapon. A small thing went past her head and she felt a small tear of blood run down her cheek. So close...

---

Tara kept looking at the two beings infront of her. Loud bangs of gunfire and of armour deflecting blows sounded behind her. But she couldn't care. The red flaring eyes of the middle being kept her gaze.

_"Doo bisst... unders. Basonderss." _The being said.

"What-What do you want? You should help Kim!" She studdered back.

_"Dee Rohte... eehre Tsait wierd nozz comman. Uber nizzt yatst." _The being used letters that faintly reminded of someone snoring.

And somehow, even though she didn't understand the words she understood their meaning. She was special and Kim's time would come later. It seemed oddly calming to hear that Kim's "time" hadn't come yet. But what did he mean with "special" ? Tara didn't want to find out and took another step back.

She turned around ran.

_"Doo cunnst rannen, aber doo cunnst dizz nizzt fairshdaecken. Nizzt vohr deer saelbst. Oond nizzt vohr EEHM."_ The voice said behind her.

And it seemed like it would come after her to get her. She ran even faster, past Ronald who lashed out for Kim, and she rolled underneath Kim's legs when she blocked his strike and threw him over her back. She didn't want to know what it meant and still the meaning imprinted in her head. She could run, yes, but she couldn't hide. Neither from herself nor from HIM. Whoever that was...

She went through a door. And out of the edge of her eyes she saw the second being move around Kim and Ron. It moved with strong strides and walked a circle around Kim and Ron. They didn't seem to notice them in thier fighting. The being held its left hand loosely and small amounts of sand fell out of it, creating an almost perfect circle.

The circle was almost done. Tara ran and saw a sign that read "Storage Room A-13".

---

Ron slowly got the upper hand over her. Sure, he was exhausted, but that was only a trick. Soon she'd come close to him for a killing blow. She would expect him to be too winded to fight back. How wrong she was. He got back from the ground and did a vicious kick that she almost flew into. Her fighting consisted of strafing runs that reminded him of fighter planes attacking slower bombing aircraft.

She went in, hit him and vanished before his slow body could react. But not this time. This time she literally threw herself into his kick. Her belly got the worst of it. How warm her skin felt on his boot... it was outright refreshing. And those tighs of hers... he felt a warmth crawl up his lower body. He got a quite interesting idea.

She fell down and clutched her body while her chest waved up and down for breath. He realised how ample how chest was and how much her black shirt emphasised her marvelous breasts. They weren't that big actually but the way her body moved sure as hell seemed ample.

He wondered how they would look without that shirt... but quickly thought that she wasn't willing to show them to him. Just like all the girls in the school. And then he realised that he could simply GET what he wanted without much effort. And, even more important, without having to hold back HIS wishes to not hurt others. He wondered at how good her curves would look and feel.

Every time he had felt aroused by a girl came to his mind, as well as every time they had simply turned him down. They surely liked that. Donning themselves up while fully knowing what effect it had on the males around them. And then they turned him down just to see his disappointment and laugh at him.

But they turned only him down. They would be flattened to have Brick Flagg or that _bastard _Mankey touch them all over their filthy meatbags. But from now on HE was the new Brick Flagg, HE was the newest and coolest guy in town.

And no one would turn him down. Never again.

---

Kim kept panting. Her whole lung seemed to be devoid of air. And Ron would have an opening. An opening to kill her. The very thought shook her violently. And then she looked up. He stood there, ready to do something. He discarded his weapon and it slid over the ground noisily. Then he laughed.

It sounded haunted and filled with delight at the same time. And then he suddenly moved down to her and took her hands into his.

"Awwwww. Is the little girl scared?" He asked in mock concern.

"Ron... stop this madness... please!" She got out between two heavy breaths.

"She should very well be, the little girl." He went on while ignoring her. "Cause I'm not going to kill her just yet. That wouldn't be fun."

He gripped her legs and spread them open while pressing his body upon hers. She tried to struggle but to no avail. Then he pinned her arms with his and blocked her whole body from moving much. His gaze moved along her hips, tigh and over her breasts.

"But there are so many other things I can do to you that are fun." He said while moving a gloved hand over her cheek. His sharp glove made another small cut underneath the first one and his finger seemed to take the first drip of blood. He rubbed it between his index finger and thumb.

Fun. It stung deeply in her heart. FUN. The whole idea seemed ridicoulus. Having fun while hurting others was wrong.

"You're bleeding, just a little bit. Just like I will make you do in a few moments. From another... _wound._" He said. Her mind froze at the very thought. It COULD not be. Never ever in her whole life. The whole thought was just abhorrible. When they had kissed it seamed like a very interesting thing to try. But not now and not in that way.

"No!" Her voice remained strong despite the shaking of her mind and sanity.

"Oh yes... Well that's what im gonna shout soon! Ill enjoy your blood on my meatstick bitch!" He said with glee while rubbing his thumb over her cheek. It feld cold and lifeless and left a long stain of blood.

And then something happened in the corner of her eye. Both of her arms were pinned down by his body and his weight crippled her movement. But she could still see something past the sharp edges of his arm. It was another being, or, to be more precise, its boots.

"Awww what is it? The interesting stuff is right here to look at!" He shouted at her while pointing at himself. Then he trailed her look and went silent. A man stood there. His clothing was a greyish greatcoat and a helmet, together with a mask which hid his face. Ron shouted at him:

"Can't a guy have some fun over here!" Then he got up. Her body was finally releaved of his weight. The mere thought of him doing such a thing still gripped her heart with fear. She could fight anything in the world: Giant octopusses, mad scientists and even ninja-monkeys. But her best friend was something off-limits. It was something that no one should have to fight against.

She rolled to the side while clutching her belly.

_"Haaaaahhhh..."_The being exhaled breath through its mask. It formed a cloud of steam even though it was rather warm in the room.

"You know what old man? You're going DOWN!" He shouted and slammed his fist towards the other mans face. The man did not flinch nor move. Both of his arms remained calmly behind his back where his gloved hands were folded together. Then a small clicking noise came from behind him.

And Ron's punch slowly lost energy and speed. It slowed further until it stopped. Ron looked at his own hand in disbelief. Then Kim saw a line of thin yellow sand lying roughly where his fist stood in midair. He shouted and tried to kick forward only to have his leg share the same fate. It set on the ground again before the circle of sand.

"WHAT IS THIS OLD MAN!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. Kim slowly got up from the ground with new breath.

_"Haaaaaahhhhhhhh..." _The man exhaled another breath.

"Shut the fuck up with your "haaaah" we ain't on the kiddie's fair!" Ron yelled even though anger and irritation were clear in his voice.

_"Enough of this squabble." _The man said and glared at Ron, who took a step back.

And then Kim realised the pain in her head. It had been overshadowed by the fighting and the fear. But now there was none of those two. Then the man moved one of his fingers and activated something. That something made a click. And then that something spoke with voices that were strangely the same as hers and Ron's.

And these voices said things that she didn't understand at first. Both Ron and her looked at the man. Her headache increased the further these voices came with what they said. Her head felt like it was going to burst any moment.

They were done.

Ron clutched his head and shouted in pain. "MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!"

The man walked forward with a knife in his hand. He walked so slowly that Kim could have jumped into his way and knocked him down. But she didn't do so. Neither did Ron. And then the man moved forward and stabbed him right in the gut. Her lips kept quivering at the very sight but she was unable to do anything about it. Ron screamed and fell down while clutching his belly.

_"Be carefull what you wish for." _He said and walked up to Kim.

She made no move when a single phrase, spoken by her own voice, roamed through her head. _"I want to forget."_

Her lips moved and spoke the same: "I want to forget."

The blade struck her belly, but oddly enough it didn't actually hurt. It did hurt, but not like it should. It didn't hurt physically, but instead her head felt like it was bursting apart. For a moment there was a picture of her holding Ron in a landscape of snow, with several of the grey men lying around. And then her head repeated the phrase: "I want to forget."

Her limp body fell down to the floor.

_"You just might get it." _The man said and began to make more lines with sand from his pocket.

---


	59. Japan And the USA

I would like to thank Lon Wolfgood for adding my story to his alert list. That means a lot to me :)

--

Light was scarce and it was not the only thing that seemed amiss. It appeared like as if a small fraction of reality itself was no longer there, drained away by what lay behind her. Tara moved on through the corridor. The closed double-door behind her seemed like the end of a chapter. A chapter of her own life which now lay the past. She had always been able to feel what others felt, sometimes even before they did themselves. Bonnie had once told her that she was closer to people's own selves than some of them were by themselves. It had been weird, but it made sense now. She had always believed that she simply saw more things in the whole picture because she paid more attention to it than most others did .

Maybe it was something more than that...

No matter how hard Tara tried to go back it wasn't possible. Everytime she tried to open the double-door something within her cringed. She had almost made it once before her hand started shaking madly and then cramped around the door handle instead of opening it. Ever since her first visit to camp WannaWeep somthing had changed within her. And behind these doors lay the key to understanding herself and that... thing. She knew that Kim was still there together with... Ron? It had to be Ron. Her mind refused to believe that Max could do such a thing to her.

And Danny was still there as well, hurt but still alive. An overwhelming urge to go through that door and to him surged through her body. Maybe it was just panic and the need for safety, or the want to find out what happened to him. The only thing she knew was that two men had dragged him away. Men who looked similar to the one in command. And the armor that lay under their greatcoats reminded her of the armour that Ron wore. There had to be a way to make him normal again. For a moment something in her heart stirred, a reminder of what she had once felt for him. She quickly shoved it back. He didn't feel the same way about her, and clinging to the illusion of a chance was painfull. He didn't want her, not at all. Why should he, if there was Kim around him all the time, clouding his perception? Not that she could compete with Kim.

She sighed. Thinking of it would only bring hurtfull memories back up. She released the doorknob and turned away. She had to let go: Of her past. Of her want to ignore what was within her. And of Ron as well.

Tara closed that chapter of her past away and went off to look for penicilline.

--

Henry pulled on the blue-ish jumpsuit that Will-Du gave him. He was glad for new clothes since a patient's gown didn't offer much warmth. He would, of course, be much happier to hear news about his daughters. A pang of guilt stuck in his throat for not being with them. The jumpsuit fit surprisingly well to his body. He looked at Will who had turned around for the sake of decency. The time for orders had come.

"Will. The wards around this mall. Are they still in place?" He asked.

Will turned around. "Wards? What... oh, you mean security cameras-" Will started but Henry interrupted him.

"No. The wards. Not cameras. Are they still active?"

"Wards? I don't get what you-"

Henry rushed forward and grabbed Will's arm. "WARDS. They are like... lines. They protect us!" Henry said with his patience running thin.

"I know NOTHING of 'wards' around this mall." Will said and freed his arm. He was clearly surprised at Henry's speed.

Henry sighed. The kid knew nothing of wards. He was surprised. "Fine then. Does this mall have a store for herbs, and a do-it-yourself store?"

"Yes. But what are you trying to do?" Will asked. Even through the facial bandages one could see his eyes narrowing.

"We make ourselves some wards. They wont be really good but they should suffice. We better hope they do..." Henry started walking out of the security office. Will followed him and was about to ask a question when Henry spoke up again.

"You'll learn something for your life, kid. Now show me to the stores."

Will mumbled several profanities and refused to comply. It was obvious to see since he crossed his arms.

Henry turned around and hissed: "Or do you want the guys who melted your face to come into this mall?"

"No... This way." Will mumbled and walked on.

--

Somewhere in japan, near a snowy mountain.

The sensei moved around Yamanuchi. He always took a walk during the morning, both to admire the views of the mountain and to gather his spirit. He only walked after his early training ruotine, of course. He walked around a dojo and heard the faint noises of wooden swords clashing against one another. He smiled. The importance of training could not be overrated. Not one day passed without him reminding his students of this simple rule. One fine example of what one can become if that rule was obeyed walked right up to him.

It was Yori, and for some reason she seemed troubled. Surprise struck the sensei since he could normally feel something like this, even when the person who felt it was at the other side of Yamanuchi. It was a mental bond with the ground and its inhabitants which could only be achieved by years of training and meditation. This sacred place was like water, and the humans were stones in it. When one of them felt something the stones moved and this created waves. And so it troubled the sensei that he hadn't been able to feel these "waves" which Yori made.

Yori bowed deeply before her master and began to speak. "Sensei, I feel that something is horribly wrong." Her voice contained great concern.

"You don't have to bow before me Yori and you know that. Now tell me what troubles you." He said with a fatherly voice that was filled with respect.

She got back up and hastily began to talk. "Several of the students feel... uneasy. Many cannot concentrate properly... me included."

Her hair was in disarray, and something within her seemed in disorder as well. He had never seen his best student in such a state before. A feeling grew in his belly, a feeling that he couldn't pinpoint or explain. That was even worse.

He chose to speek absolutely freely. "I did not sense this... nor did I sense anything today. Something must be amiss. Gather the students. I will investigate into this matter."

"Yes, sensei." Yori said and walked away. He noticed that she was tense, outright stiff. He had always admired her eased personality and rational thought. To see her so... changed was truly bad. Something was bound to happen soon. Something bad. He had a small idea pop into his head but pushed the thought away. No, that couldn't be.

"I will see into this matter Yori. Resume your training." He said and walked away.

After several minutes the sensei reached the central Dojo, a very huge building wich stretched several stories into the sky. But it that was not the important thing within the building, not by far. What stretched beneath the ground was by far more important. He moved through the gates of the Dojo and moved through the outer door. He was within the huge entry chamber of the building. Then he went to the left without admiring the fine architecture like he usually did.

The stones moved oddly, and their waves shaped strangely. They normally branded off of the stones they met, but this time some of them seemed... amiss.

While shaking his head the sensei entered a small chamber. It was forgotten by all but the most important people of Yamanuchi. The walls were old, older than anyone in the small town, and the stories they told were long forgotten. But their purpose was still there, as always. Air, older then generations and unmoved for unheard amounts of time, stood still inside the room. A statue, clad in old ritual samurai armor and with a blade that was still as sharp as a razor, stood its lonely watch in the old and forsaken room. The arm lay on the sword's hilt and rear end. The blade stood infront of and between its straight legs. The mask and helmet hid the statues face. Two deep black holes lay where the eyes of a wearer would look through.

He felt watched. Maybe the stories were true after all...

For generations nobody had been here, simply because there was never a reason. The sensei slowley moved towards the statue and knelt down infront of it. And then he began to pray an old litany.

_"Alles endet in deinem Namen. Nichts beginnt in deinen Namen. Wir leben in deinem Namen..." _Something within the room began to move, whispers, faint and thin, flowed against his ears.

_"Alles endet in deinem Namen. Wir sind in Nichts ohne deinen Namen. Denn wir sind deine Diener..." _The air itself felt thicker than before, swollen with meaning, purpose and something that gave him a goose-flesh.

_"Alles endet in deinem Namen. Ohne dich ist Nichts. Und Nichts ist ohne Leben und nicht in deinem Namen..." _

He had no idea what these prayers meant. They were spoken in a language he didn't even know. But still everything kept on moving within his head. Everything stirred and he kept on reciting the old litany. His forehead began to sweat, his mind started loosing focus and everything blurred. The whispers became louder and louder, all of them told him to stop, to turn around and leave. None of them came in a language he understood, but all of them seemed like the voice of the long dead. Forgotten, old and dead.

There was utter silence when he was done. He opened his eyes. The statue stood there, the old sockets of the samurai armor's mask were filled with an eery green light. His eyes wandered into the ones of the mask, slowly, steadily and without any way to stop them. He wanted to look away. The whispers became unbearingly loud and menacing in their message. He finally understood single fragments of what they said:

_leave this place...Run... you will drown...the Never lies behind this door..._

The statue stood there. Its arms were raised and the hands held the blade, ready to strike. He couldn't believe it. Sweat broke out on his whole body, everything within him screamed at him to leave. He knew that there was no way of escape. He was being judged by whatever lay behind that mask. The voices recoiled in fear. It felt as if the air and dust within the room averted to the walls on the opposite side of the room. Oddly enough, a small part of the sensei believed that these were souls of the dead, bound to this room and to the statue.

Tombraiders, perhaps? Thieves, maybe? Or maybe those who were deemed... unworthy ended that way?

The blade shimmered in unnatural green light. It reflected the greenish orbs behind the mask. Then the orbs suddenly died out. Or maybe they simply returned to guarding the room until another person entered? He didn't know. His eyes were no longer affixed and held in trance so he stared at the blade. Green light still shimmered among the blade, and his eyes gazed around for what could be the reason. Greenish lines, shimmering with unearthly energy, adorned the walls and ceiling. They displayed signs he didn't recognise and none of them made any sense. He was amazed by the symmetry and intricate detail of the lines and the lighting. He was amazed and mezmerized.

_"Tritt ein, Sterblicher..." _An oddly immaterial voice sounded through the room.

He had no idea what it meant, but it seemed to be written in the same language as the prayer. An eternity of time seemed to wheeze through the room, shushing the whispers that suddenly fought for his attention.

_"Enter, mortal..." _He understood and moved his shaken body around. The door was open and it led downstairs into a pitchblack passage. He turned around once more to look at the statue. It stood there just as it had minutes ago. The blade stood at the ground with both hands grasping its rear end. It seemed like as if nothing had happened. The sensei stepped back and gripped the wall of the passage. After that the old man moved down the stairs. Faint green light accompanied him. His decend into darkness began.

Only then he wondered: The blade had not been a japanese one. It looked rather simple, but also intricate at the hilt. He made a mental note to look into european swords once more.

--

The clothes weren't the most fitting ones. A sweatshirt didn't have enough pockets for stuff. And the jeans were too tight and hindered his movement. Max had no fashion sense at all so he didn't know that Bonnie had made the choices with style in mind. He also didn't know that he would like somewhat attractive in those clothes. They broadened his shoulders, made him seem stronger and hid his short size.

But he knew nothing of "style" and thought more practical. After a few moments of rummaging around in the closet he found fitting clothes: Dark blue trousers that weren't made out of jeans fabric. A white muscle shirt and a dark blue t shirt to cover that followed. Then he a jeans-jacket of the same colour. It was rather thin and he could wear it openly without freezing. He even saw a black trenchcoat which had the perfect lenght for him. No, even with all the temptation of wanting to look "cool" the coat was still too impractical. A pair of boxers followed suit. He still had his long greenish army-socks which would keep him warm. And they were clean and dry.

He picked up the rifle and backpack and quickly dressed up in the bathroom. After dropping his clothes he looked into the mirror. He couldn't describe what he saw there: Murder, bravery, cowardice, what was it? A mix of all three? He tried to stop thinking of what Bonnie would say if she saw him like this but he couldn't. Would she approve of what she saw? Utmost certainly not. But Elaine had liked it. Elaine had even made him a few compliments about his frame. Elaine... his mind began to race. Memories began to flare up. Among them came the pictures connected to it. Elaine in her pizza-delivery clothes. Elaine in her scooter. Elaine running along an alley with black shadows running after her...

He quickly shook his head. Bonnie was not Elaine. Not in any way. She would drop him for the first pretty face that walked the street as soon as he became useless. And that moment would come rather soon. As soon as they were out of the city. Away from conflict and danger. Away from all the murder and the gunshots, the screams and the blood. His heart cringed.

Max shook his head and began cleaning his glasses. There was work to be done. It proved to distract him at least somewhat.

--

The sensei moved down the black stairs. They were completely even and made of black material that resembled metal. There was no reailing and only dim greenish light. But HOW could such a material be made at the time Yamanuchi was founded? That had been almost a millenium ago! And it was still like no metal he knew: Hard, unforgiving, ever sharp and without any sign of corrosion or disrepair. He knew that EVERY metal started to loose stability if it didn't receive proper care. And these stairs were completely uncared for many years. In fact the sensei knew of not even a single mention of maintenance inside the caverns.

He met even ground and the stairs ended. A long and pitchblack corridor stretched out infront of him. The green lines continued on among the walls but he couldn't see and end. It seemed that only his immediate surroundings were illuminated. He looked behind himself. Utter blackness. Nothing ever suggested that something was behind him. Heck, he would swear that there was nothing behind him if he hadn't come down those stairs himself. He walked forward while his goose-flesh increased. The air was bitter and old, but strangely enough without any dust.

His brows furrowed. Dust was mostly made of decomposing things: Dead grass, cotton, clothes, metal, wood, skin... anything decayed. The human didn't have to die, the skin always regenerated and threw off the dead parts. But there was nothing within the air except for a bitter and coppery taste. But how could this be? EVERYTHING decayed. But the metal... it seemed 100 intact. So if this place was made purely out of that metal it could possibly be that way. He quickly dismissed the thought and went on. Empty blackness stretched out infront of him and then, suddenly, the light-giving lines were gone. He stood within absolute blackness.

What should he do? Just what should he do now? His mind raced. A voice within him spoke up: _Told you not to go in there... _He was about to start panicking. He could simply backtrack but that thought didn't came to his mind.

Then a faint green hue lit up to his right. Or was it his left? Maybe he was simply going straight after all. But he followed the light. A crossing of some kind seemed to be behind him. He went further ahead and after some time he entered a chamber of sorts. It was round and rather big. The green lines among the walls split and went bot up and down. They began to glim stronger. Strong enough to actually see something. Paintings adorned the walls and the round ceiling of the half-ball-like chamber. The pictures were drawn in ancient ways and showed armies going to war against... what? He couldn't see or understand it at first.

But after some time he saw the paintings more clearly: Some of the men fought against their comrades, and they fought with a wild frenzy. The "normal" warriors kept fighting with discipline while the strange ones stayed in rough packs and swung wildly. And there seemed to be... holes of some kind in the paintings. No, not holes, more like... missing fragments. There were several groups of fighters who seemed to have been killed in swaths. He saw whole formations crumbling in lines, like as if something of ungodly power had mowed them down. He looked around, enraptured, and was lost in thoughts. Only when he looked at the foot of the picture he realised something horrible.

Scelletons. Three of them. They sat near to the walls. Old chains of the blackened metal clung around the bony remains of their legs and arms. He started breathing wildly. The whisperings got louder and louder. Small pots made of the metal lay near the corpses. They must have contained color. Just the color the painters had used to make the paintings. His eyes finally realized what the "holes" in the painting were:

Figures of blackened men. They were oddly... immaterial and it seemed like they didn't really exist. There were three of them. No, there were three holes. And there were three long and metallic items sticking out of the holes. At first they seemed like naginata, long japanes lances/halberds. But then he realised what they were. One spat yellow fire ona group of men who seemed to writhe on the ground. The other two had much smaller flames coming out of their sticks but they mowed the groups of men he had seen earlier.

He felt his stomach lurch up when he saw the lotus blade standing quietly in metallic holder. It's shimmer was gone. Simply gone.

The lotus blade, gone. It was still there. Physically at least. But what made it the Lotus blade was gone. Simply gone and sucked away.

He turned around and ran. Something tugged at the remains of his mind, he searched himself like he always did on meditation. Parts of his "mental inside" were... away. Missing. Empty. He reached the crossroad and noticed that the lights were much stronger now. He could see a very long chamber infront of him. Long rows of scelettons sat in a half-sitting position with old and dull blades stuck through their former bellies.

Ritual suicide. Seppuku. On a mass-scale. The entire room was filled with rows upon rows of them. He couldn't understand it all. Oh, yes, he could, but he refused to do so. To his right was an even longer corridor. He heared movement, something that was physically impossible. The noise seemed to be... it was simply not ALLOWED to exist. He heard something moving, multiple somethings after some time. Greenish light slowly come up within the completely black chamber. He couldn't see what exactly it was since he had already turned left and ran up the stairs.

He ran and ran for what seemed forever.

Yori stood in the Dojo's main hall with her arms crossed and a worried expression on her face. He reached her. Finally someone to talk to. He realised that he could no longer feel the dojo and its inhabitants. Some were gone. Not dead, not away from the place, just... gone.

"Sensei, what is-"

He gripped her arm tightly and squeezed as hard as he could. His strength was already leaving him.

"There was a fight. Three evils were defeated, but not killed. The catacombs are a tomb. The painters gave their lives after they were done. The fighters gave theirs too. The lotus blade bound the three evils to this place. If one of the men had escaped the evils would have been free!" He exclaimed hotly and with blank eyes. He felt his humanity leave. But even if it left it had to leave with words at least. The truth would be spoken.

"Master I don't get-" Yori said while trying to shove him away from her arm. She was VERY confused and worried.

"The lotus blade BOUND them! It bound them when all the men were dead and I... I set them free! Oh god I set them free! Yori get everyone that is still sane and run to Hakamota! Run further then and never come back here!"

Hakamota was a small village nearby. It was on the only real mountain pass that led to Yamanuchi. The residents had always been protected by Yamanuchi in exchange for absolute secrecy.

"Yori looked at him with an afraid expression before turning around and doing what she was told. Good girl. No stupid questions, she always did her job right.

He fell to the floor with an exhausted sigh. Noises of ripping fabric came up with screams following directly after. Two of them. Then came another noise, it sounded like a whoosh of fire. Number three.

An apprentice entered the Dojo. He wore the kimono of one of the youngest.

"Sensei! You have to help us-" He began. The sensei's body began to move. Everything rent rather quick. He could take out the apprentice with one swift move of his hand but all finesse was gone from the sensei's body. His hands wrapped around the young one's throat and pressed roughly. The young man began to gurgle. He tried to fend the man off and he would easily have been able to with a couple of moves. But he was caught offguard so he didn't know how to fend off the much older man.

The young man finally made a kick to the sensei's guts and wriggled himself free. Instead of using his skills to simply kill the man the sensei's body clumsily stroke his fist forward. The young man blocked his blow and threw him over unto his back. The sensei was gone. For a long time already. And when the young man saw the elder man's eyes they were enraged dots of red in an old and snarling face. Oh yes, the sensei went away a long time ago. More screems and gunfire erupted from outside. But this time there were sounds of wooden swords clashing against flesh and staffs hitting heads.

Out of his eye the apprentice thought to have seen something... blackened. But it was gone already and the young man's urge to just punch the old faggot in the face grew with every heartbeat.


End file.
